Dress Me In White - 1/1
Dress Me In White
Rating: R, Gen, Het
Characters: Jess/Sam
Disclaimer: The characters are sadly not mine. I’m just sticking pins into Winchester dolls for the purposes of general amusement. Sorry about the holes!
Word Count: 2,753
A/N: Erm. So not the fic I was supposed to be posting this weekend. WTF? Bad muse!
A birthday fic for Camille-is-here who likes to see a female p.o.v. Happy, extraordinarily belated (sorry, I am an idiot), birthday, Camille!
Special kudos to secret-seer for doing the fastest cleanup of a banner ever. *dropkicks my original into the bin with shame* Your version is just so much more awesome. Thank you!
Setting: Palo Alto, Calif., Nov. 2005
Summary: Everyone has nightmares. Jess? Hers have always been a little different.
You know that dream? The one everyone has? Your worst nightmare? Sometimes it comes true.
The thing about families is that they never forget, and they never let you forget anything either.
You want to see some fuzzy ultrasound images of a blob in a uterus? Hell, her father built his own light box and attached it to the wall in his rumpus room just for show and tell after family barbecues.
Needless to say, when Jess was born, her Dad was right there with his brand new video camera.
That bloody head just crowning through the birth canal? Jessica.
The sound of her mother yelling, ‘Don’t pussy out on me now, David Anthony!’ followed by a giant crash, and two blurred minutes of a foot hooked around the wheel of a hospital bed? Her Dad. Fainting.
Despite those inauspicious beginnings, there was no stopping her father from turning into a suburban DeMille; he was on a roll, literally. Her Mom thankfully stuck faithfully to her old Olympus SLR. But between both parents, and two sets of doting grandparents, there ended up being a lot of blackmail material on Jess over the years.
The worst thing? Wasn’t the fact that they kept on proudly documenting her life in full colour-sometimes accompanied by a goddamned soundtrack. It was the way they insisted on repeat showings to everyone they knew.
Jess swore that her local postman had seen more photos of her over the years than he had of his own children. He was also the first person in her neighbourhood to know about her acceptance to Stanford, and she had a feeling she wasn’t going to be able to avoid buying him a ticket to her graduation ceremony along with the rest of her immediate family. She could just see it now. Six tickets: Sam; her parents; Gramma Elise, Poppa Tony; Auntie Rita; and the postman. Sam just laughed, said the more the merrier, and told her to be grateful she looked nothing like Bob Elders.
Sometimes Jess thought Sam’s strange insistence on happy families came from too many years watching reruns of Leave it to Beaver, The Partridge Family, and The Brady Bunch. Then she remembered that one solitary photo on the nightstand, the practiced ease with which he deflected all her questions about his absent family, and knew that when it came down to it she’d bribe as many of her friends for their spare tickets as she had to, to keep him smiling like that.
Jessica, honey? Don’t be bashful. No need to hide behind your hair. Such a pretty face. Come on, stand closer to Sam and give us all a big smile.
There. Now that wasn’t hard was it? You two look perfect together.
At the age of eight Jess ripped the stupid blonde head off her doll, and buried the body parts in different corners of her Mom’s prized vegetable garden. The zucchinis and radishes never quite recovered from the shock.
Jessie? Don’t cry, honey. We’ll find your doll, or get you anther one. Come on wipe that dirt off your face. Okay, hold it right there and give me your happy face.
There. Now that wasn’t hard was it? You look adorable.
Like every other girl on her street Jess grew up with a pink bedroom. Not a fluorescent in your face, ‘I know what I like. I like pink. You got a problem with that?’ kind of retro punk tip of your Mohawk pink. More an insipid Fifties so gentle it was practically shamed into voluntary muteness baby pink.
She had a pink bedroom, and after about the age of six, she knew it sucked.
Jess did her best to adapt her room to her stronger personality, but there was only so much you could do with school pennants and band posters, even the heavy metal variety. The pink still blushed out from around the edges. Those gilt ballet trophies didn’t help either.
At fifteen she bought a large tin of orange-it was on sale, and the only colour she could afford with what was left of her birthday money after treating her friends to sundaes at the local ice cream parlour-paint, snuck it inside, and spent the whole of the night of the 24th giving her room a complete makeover.
It was worth getting grounded for a month over. The colour gave her a headache on occasion, but it beat pink hands down. It looked even better after she lifted enough supplies from the school art room to turn all four walls into a surreal Dali-esque mural.
Jessica, dear? Don’t hide that wall behind the drop cloth. Pull it back so your father can get a full 360˚ panorama.
There. Now that wasn’t hard was it? It looks wonderful. Though I have to say, I’m not quite sure about the clocks, but it’s all very clever.
When she was thirteen, and getting into the swing of making feminist statements, Jess “borrowed” her little sister’s Malibu Barbie™, used the black nail polish she had left over from Halloween to create army boots, a bottle cap as a helmet, shoe polish for facial camouflage, and one of her Dad’s khaki handkerchief’s as a uniform, and sent the doll off to war by nailing it to their bedroom door next to the Private! Keep out! This Means You! sign.
Jessica Lee! Don’t you take that tone with me. Take it down right now, tell your sister you’re sorry, give her a hug, and hold it for a count of three.
There. Now that wasn’t hard was it? You two look so alike when you’re smiling.
Ballet wasn’t the only horror her parents inflicted on her. They entered her, and her sister, in every contest from Cutest Baby right up to Talented Teen in the greater Cincinnati metropolitan area.
In 1997 Jess started fighting back. It only took three months of crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out in the finals before they got the picture. Although possibly the time she turned her back on the judges in the middle of her ribbon performance of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ bent over, lifted her skirt, and flashed them with the panties emblazoned with the words, ‘Bite Me’ had a lot to do with their decision that competition was unhealthy for her emotional wellbeing.
Jessica … Moore is it? Now don’t be shy, honey. All the girls have to have their photo taken before the final for the judges. Come on, just fluff that skirt a little bit higher, and smile for the birdie.
There. Now that wasn’t hard, was it? I think we might be a winner, don’t you?
An all-girls’ camp became her parent’s alternate strategy for the remainder of her school years. Something about civilising her while she participated in some wholesome outdoor confidence-building activities.
Jess figured her parents were both taken in by the rhetoric in the glossy advertising brochure, and a little desperate with what to do with her during the summer holidays at that stage. She was right on both counts.
Camp Weemowhack was a surprise to all of them. Her parents got three weeks of peace a year, and Jess? Jess swam, canoed, climbed trees, got really good at hitting archery targets, and accidentally-but only the first year, she got craftier after that-burnt down the enemy Red Robins’ cabin. She also learned when and where to pick her battles.
In the end it was a win-win situation for Jess and her parents.
Right, I want everyone lined up in your cabin groups. No pushing! Oh for heaven’s sake! No biting either! Right, I want the Bluebirds over this side, and Robins, y’all best sit right at the other end of bleachers. That’s better. Everyone say “Weemowhack!”
There. Now that wasn’t hard was it? Your parents are going to love this year’s photo.
Jess hated being tall. It was bad enough being blonde, and having the generic chocolate box prettiness that got her into all those finals in the first place. But when genetics blew her a raspberry and she shot up six inches after she turned fifteen, she found out that it’s hard to keep a low profile at school when you’re 5’11”.
Then, out of nowhere came breasts. Like another late-developing curse from the Gods. Blonde, pretty, tall, and now she needed bras, damn it all.
Naturally the day school started again she got asked to try out for cheerleading. As if she wanted to prance about on the sidelines of a gridiron match in a short skirt shaking her pom-poms, it was like the talent competitions all over again.
Two days later she forged her father's signature and joined the girl’s soccer team instead. She spent the rest of the season sweaty, covered in mud, and completely happy. When the Hyde Park Queens beat the Evanston High All-Stars it was the first trophy she was unreservedly proud of.
Jess and Francis? You two are the tallest; can you stand in the middle of the back row and hold the cup up above Mandy’s head?
There. That’s perfect. Go Queens!
When she was sixteen she added three holes to the demure one she already had in each ear, and shaved all her hair off. The only reason her parents couldn’t kill her for that little rebellion was because she managed to do it live on local television for the school’s inaugural Leukaemia Shave for a Cure Day.
It only took her three weeks to arrange the charity event once she decided she’d had enough of being a stereotypical blonde bimbo.
Her Dad never found that out, but she knew her Mom had her suspicions.
Let’s have a big hand for our very own Jessica Moore! First shave of the day, and she raised $453 dollars for the cause. Congratulations! Now just look over there and wave to all the people at home, Jessica.
There. Now, that wasn’t hard was it? Perfect!
By the time she was seventeen Jess had belatedly found the time to discover boys, and realise that sometimes it was best to work with what you had.
Boys liked boobs, long legs, and blonde hair. She liked boys. And she loved the sex.
She was also scarily good at school and had no intentions of turning into the local Dairy Queen and settling down to produce 2.5 cute kids.
She spent the last year of school laying the groundwork for a future as far away from Ohio and her camera happy way too close-knit family as possible. Jess posted all of her out-of-state college applications from camp, and spent the next few months praying hardest for Stanford because California was a whole other universe.
After that, she was going to New York to storm the art world. Painting was both freedom and another kind of disguise.
I haven’t got all day, kid. I can do you 10 ID photos for $20. Or 20 for $35. How many do you need? Wow, that’s a lot of applications. Be cheaper if you applied to State, you know. That’s what my boy did. No? Okay, stand on that mark there, smile, and freeze…
There. All done. You got anything smaller than a $50? Okay, perfect. Who’s next?
Stanford was a revelation. Brains mattered. Looks didn’t hurt either. She could be everything she wanted to be, and finally all those disparate parts of her clicked miraculously into place.
And then there was Sam. He often joked that she saved him rather than the other way around. At times like that she just did her best to kiss him senseless, and encouraged him to fuck her into the mattress or whatever other piece of furniture was handy.
From the moment she met Sam Winchester, Jess knew that this was the person she was destined to spend the rest of her life with.
Jess? Don’t blush. You look beautiful. I promise no one’s going to see these photos except you and me. Oh, and maybe Derek Peters in Room 401, because he said he’d pay big bucks to see you naked. Jess! I was kidding!
Come on, smile for me, sweetheart.
There. Now that wasn’t hard was it? You look absolutely perfect. Jess? What are you going to do with that lamp?
Ow! Jess!
Everyone has nightmares, usually the same one. Being naked in a public place with everyone laughing at you. Jess? Hers have always been a little different.
Being dressed up in a pretty ruffled pink or virginal white dress-often covered in sequins-and dragged out onto yet another empty stage to wait for the lights to come on. That’s the dream that has haunted her since she was a kid.
Don’t get her wrong, she adored her family and knew they loved her, but she’d worked hard to become something more than a pretty face in the crowd. She wanted to make an impact, become one of those magnificently free-spirited artists that people talked about for years to come. The name Jessica Lee Moore was going to mean something to the world. She was going to make Sam, and her parents proud of who she really was.
Right, one-minute delay, timer on…
Shit, maybe I should have gone with plaits instead of loose? Thank God, Mom’s not here telling me to stop hiding behind my hair.
Okay, deep breath. Hold up the art prize. Smile for Mom and Dad.
Damn, I think I moved. Oh well, can’t get it perfect the first time. Let’s try a two-minute delay.
Jess hadn’t owned a nightgown since she was seven and she stuffed hers in the garden incinerator, borrowed her older brother’s basketball t-shirt, crossed her arms and staged what was the first of many protests in her life.
The only thing that had changed by the time she got to Palo Alto was the fact that the t-shirts shrank drastically in size.
Sam didn’t seem to mind her skimpy attire at all. On the contrary, he specialised in presenting her with the silliest kid’s t-shirts he could find at the weekend markets, and then washing them on an impossibly hot cycle whenever it was his turn to do their laundry. The results were predictable, and really cute-as was his reaction when she put them on, which was something she only ever admitted aloud to her girlfriends when they had their monthly marshmallow, nachos, and tequila film marathons.
Okay, Jess lied. She did have that one stupid girly nightgown that her grandmother gave her last Christmas that her mother refused to let her throw out, muttering dire warnings about everyone needing one decent nightgown in case she got run over by a bus and ended up in hospital or something equally outdated.
She’d hidden it in a case in the top shelf of their wardrobe along with some examples of her mother’s novelty jumpers that were too frightening to be allowed to see daylight.
Except that now, standing here in their bedroom, the one place she’d always felt safer than anywhere else, she was only afraid of one thing. And it wasn’t a jumper with a crocheted reindeer on it.
It was this man, the stranger who’d woken her up in the middle of the night. The man who was somehow holding that white nightgown gently between his hands.
She couldn’t hear anything. She knew she had to be going into shock. She was screaming. She knew she had to be screaming. Sam wasn’t there, and she knew she was screaming. And Sam wasn’t there.
Why?
‘Oh, trust me, sweetheart. The nightgown’s not for my benefit, even though I do like to call myself a traditionalist. It’s not even really for you. If it makes it any easier, think of it this way. Your boyfriend’s going to love seeing you in it.’
And Sam wasn’t there.
‘No, he isn’t. But don’t worry. He soon will be.’
Jessica? Don’t be bashful. No need to hide behind your hair. Such a pretty face. Isn’t that what your mother used to say? Come on, give me a smile.
There. Now that wasn’t hard, was it? You do want to look absolutely perfect for Sam, don’t you?
And Sam was there.
Rating: R, Gen, Het
Characters: Jess/Sam
Disclaimer: The characters are sadly not mine. I’m just sticking pins into Winchester dolls for the purposes of general amusement. Sorry about the holes!
Word Count: 2,753
A/N: Erm. So not the fic I was supposed to be posting this weekend. WTF? Bad muse!
A birthday fic for Camille-is-here who likes to see a female p.o.v. Happy, extraordinarily belated (sorry, I am an idiot), birthday, Camille!
Special kudos to secret-seer for doing the fastest cleanup of a banner ever. *dropkicks my original into the bin with shame* Your version is just so much more awesome. Thank you!
Setting: Palo Alto, Calif., Nov. 2005
Summary: Everyone has nightmares. Jess? Hers have always been a little different.
You know that dream? The one everyone has? Your worst nightmare? Sometimes it comes true.
The thing about families is that they never forget, and they never let you forget anything either.
You want to see some fuzzy ultrasound images of a blob in a uterus? Hell, her father built his own light box and attached it to the wall in his rumpus room just for show and tell after family barbecues.
Needless to say, when Jess was born, her Dad was right there with his brand new video camera.
That bloody head just crowning through the birth canal? Jessica.
The sound of her mother yelling, ‘Don’t pussy out on me now, David Anthony!’ followed by a giant crash, and two blurred minutes of a foot hooked around the wheel of a hospital bed? Her Dad. Fainting.
Despite those inauspicious beginnings, there was no stopping her father from turning into a suburban DeMille; he was on a roll, literally. Her Mom thankfully stuck faithfully to her old Olympus SLR. But between both parents, and two sets of doting grandparents, there ended up being a lot of blackmail material on Jess over the years.
The worst thing? Wasn’t the fact that they kept on proudly documenting her life in full colour-sometimes accompanied by a goddamned soundtrack. It was the way they insisted on repeat showings to everyone they knew.
Jess swore that her local postman had seen more photos of her over the years than he had of his own children. He was also the first person in her neighbourhood to know about her acceptance to Stanford, and she had a feeling she wasn’t going to be able to avoid buying him a ticket to her graduation ceremony along with the rest of her immediate family. She could just see it now. Six tickets: Sam; her parents; Gramma Elise, Poppa Tony; Auntie Rita; and the postman. Sam just laughed, said the more the merrier, and told her to be grateful she looked nothing like Bob Elders.
Sometimes Jess thought Sam’s strange insistence on happy families came from too many years watching reruns of Leave it to Beaver, The Partridge Family, and The Brady Bunch. Then she remembered that one solitary photo on the nightstand, the practiced ease with which he deflected all her questions about his absent family, and knew that when it came down to it she’d bribe as many of her friends for their spare tickets as she had to, to keep him smiling like that.
Jessica, honey? Don’t be bashful. No need to hide behind your hair. Such a pretty face. Come on, stand closer to Sam and give us all a big smile.
There. Now that wasn’t hard was it? You two look perfect together.
At the age of eight Jess ripped the stupid blonde head off her doll, and buried the body parts in different corners of her Mom’s prized vegetable garden. The zucchinis and radishes never quite recovered from the shock.
Jessie? Don’t cry, honey. We’ll find your doll, or get you anther one. Come on wipe that dirt off your face. Okay, hold it right there and give me your happy face.
There. Now that wasn’t hard was it? You look adorable.
Like every other girl on her street Jess grew up with a pink bedroom. Not a fluorescent in your face, ‘I know what I like. I like pink. You got a problem with that?’ kind of retro punk tip of your Mohawk pink. More an insipid Fifties so gentle it was practically shamed into voluntary muteness baby pink.
She had a pink bedroom, and after about the age of six, she knew it sucked.
Jess did her best to adapt her room to her stronger personality, but there was only so much you could do with school pennants and band posters, even the heavy metal variety. The pink still blushed out from around the edges. Those gilt ballet trophies didn’t help either.
At fifteen she bought a large tin of orange-it was on sale, and the only colour she could afford with what was left of her birthday money after treating her friends to sundaes at the local ice cream parlour-paint, snuck it inside, and spent the whole of the night of the 24th giving her room a complete makeover.
It was worth getting grounded for a month over. The colour gave her a headache on occasion, but it beat pink hands down. It looked even better after she lifted enough supplies from the school art room to turn all four walls into a surreal Dali-esque mural.
Jessica, dear? Don’t hide that wall behind the drop cloth. Pull it back so your father can get a full 360˚ panorama.
There. Now that wasn’t hard was it? It looks wonderful. Though I have to say, I’m not quite sure about the clocks, but it’s all very clever.
When she was thirteen, and getting into the swing of making feminist statements, Jess “borrowed” her little sister’s Malibu Barbie™, used the black nail polish she had left over from Halloween to create army boots, a bottle cap as a helmet, shoe polish for facial camouflage, and one of her Dad’s khaki handkerchief’s as a uniform, and sent the doll off to war by nailing it to their bedroom door next to the Private! Keep out! This Means You! sign.
Jessica Lee! Don’t you take that tone with me. Take it down right now, tell your sister you’re sorry, give her a hug, and hold it for a count of three.
There. Now that wasn’t hard was it? You two look so alike when you’re smiling.
Ballet wasn’t the only horror her parents inflicted on her. They entered her, and her sister, in every contest from Cutest Baby right up to Talented Teen in the greater Cincinnati metropolitan area.
In 1997 Jess started fighting back. It only took three months of crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out in the finals before they got the picture. Although possibly the time she turned her back on the judges in the middle of her ribbon performance of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ bent over, lifted her skirt, and flashed them with the panties emblazoned with the words, ‘Bite Me’ had a lot to do with their decision that competition was unhealthy for her emotional wellbeing.
Jessica … Moore is it? Now don’t be shy, honey. All the girls have to have their photo taken before the final for the judges. Come on, just fluff that skirt a little bit higher, and smile for the birdie.
There. Now that wasn’t hard, was it? I think we might be a winner, don’t you?
An all-girls’ camp became her parent’s alternate strategy for the remainder of her school years. Something about civilising her while she participated in some wholesome outdoor confidence-building activities.
Jess figured her parents were both taken in by the rhetoric in the glossy advertising brochure, and a little desperate with what to do with her during the summer holidays at that stage. She was right on both counts.
Camp Weemowhack was a surprise to all of them. Her parents got three weeks of peace a year, and Jess? Jess swam, canoed, climbed trees, got really good at hitting archery targets, and accidentally-but only the first year, she got craftier after that-burnt down the enemy Red Robins’ cabin. She also learned when and where to pick her battles.
In the end it was a win-win situation for Jess and her parents.
Right, I want everyone lined up in your cabin groups. No pushing! Oh for heaven’s sake! No biting either! Right, I want the Bluebirds over this side, and Robins, y’all best sit right at the other end of bleachers. That’s better. Everyone say “Weemowhack!”
There. Now that wasn’t hard was it? Your parents are going to love this year’s photo.
Jess hated being tall. It was bad enough being blonde, and having the generic chocolate box prettiness that got her into all those finals in the first place. But when genetics blew her a raspberry and she shot up six inches after she turned fifteen, she found out that it’s hard to keep a low profile at school when you’re 5’11”.
Then, out of nowhere came breasts. Like another late-developing curse from the Gods. Blonde, pretty, tall, and now she needed bras, damn it all.
Naturally the day school started again she got asked to try out for cheerleading. As if she wanted to prance about on the sidelines of a gridiron match in a short skirt shaking her pom-poms, it was like the talent competitions all over again.
Two days later she forged her father's signature and joined the girl’s soccer team instead. She spent the rest of the season sweaty, covered in mud, and completely happy. When the Hyde Park Queens beat the Evanston High All-Stars it was the first trophy she was unreservedly proud of.
Jess and Francis? You two are the tallest; can you stand in the middle of the back row and hold the cup up above Mandy’s head?
There. That’s perfect. Go Queens!
When she was sixteen she added three holes to the demure one she already had in each ear, and shaved all her hair off. The only reason her parents couldn’t kill her for that little rebellion was because she managed to do it live on local television for the school’s inaugural Leukaemia Shave for a Cure Day.
It only took her three weeks to arrange the charity event once she decided she’d had enough of being a stereotypical blonde bimbo.
Her Dad never found that out, but she knew her Mom had her suspicions.
Let’s have a big hand for our very own Jessica Moore! First shave of the day, and she raised $453 dollars for the cause. Congratulations! Now just look over there and wave to all the people at home, Jessica.
There. Now, that wasn’t hard was it? Perfect!
By the time she was seventeen Jess had belatedly found the time to discover boys, and realise that sometimes it was best to work with what you had.
Boys liked boobs, long legs, and blonde hair. She liked boys. And she loved the sex.
She was also scarily good at school and had no intentions of turning into the local Dairy Queen and settling down to produce 2.5 cute kids.
She spent the last year of school laying the groundwork for a future as far away from Ohio and her camera happy way too close-knit family as possible. Jess posted all of her out-of-state college applications from camp, and spent the next few months praying hardest for Stanford because California was a whole other universe.
After that, she was going to New York to storm the art world. Painting was both freedom and another kind of disguise.
I haven’t got all day, kid. I can do you 10 ID photos for $20. Or 20 for $35. How many do you need? Wow, that’s a lot of applications. Be cheaper if you applied to State, you know. That’s what my boy did. No? Okay, stand on that mark there, smile, and freeze…
There. All done. You got anything smaller than a $50? Okay, perfect. Who’s next?
Stanford was a revelation. Brains mattered. Looks didn’t hurt either. She could be everything she wanted to be, and finally all those disparate parts of her clicked miraculously into place.
And then there was Sam. He often joked that she saved him rather than the other way around. At times like that she just did her best to kiss him senseless, and encouraged him to fuck her into the mattress or whatever other piece of furniture was handy.
From the moment she met Sam Winchester, Jess knew that this was the person she was destined to spend the rest of her life with.
Jess? Don’t blush. You look beautiful. I promise no one’s going to see these photos except you and me. Oh, and maybe Derek Peters in Room 401, because he said he’d pay big bucks to see you naked. Jess! I was kidding!
Come on, smile for me, sweetheart.
There. Now that wasn’t hard was it? You look absolutely perfect. Jess? What are you going to do with that lamp?
Ow! Jess!
Everyone has nightmares, usually the same one. Being naked in a public place with everyone laughing at you. Jess? Hers have always been a little different.
Being dressed up in a pretty ruffled pink or virginal white dress-often covered in sequins-and dragged out onto yet another empty stage to wait for the lights to come on. That’s the dream that has haunted her since she was a kid.
Don’t get her wrong, she adored her family and knew they loved her, but she’d worked hard to become something more than a pretty face in the crowd. She wanted to make an impact, become one of those magnificently free-spirited artists that people talked about for years to come. The name Jessica Lee Moore was going to mean something to the world. She was going to make Sam, and her parents proud of who she really was.
Right, one-minute delay, timer on…
Shit, maybe I should have gone with plaits instead of loose? Thank God, Mom’s not here telling me to stop hiding behind my hair.
Okay, deep breath. Hold up the art prize. Smile for Mom and Dad.
Damn, I think I moved. Oh well, can’t get it perfect the first time. Let’s try a two-minute delay.
Jess hadn’t owned a nightgown since she was seven and she stuffed hers in the garden incinerator, borrowed her older brother’s basketball t-shirt, crossed her arms and staged what was the first of many protests in her life.
The only thing that had changed by the time she got to Palo Alto was the fact that the t-shirts shrank drastically in size.
Sam didn’t seem to mind her skimpy attire at all. On the contrary, he specialised in presenting her with the silliest kid’s t-shirts he could find at the weekend markets, and then washing them on an impossibly hot cycle whenever it was his turn to do their laundry. The results were predictable, and really cute-as was his reaction when she put them on, which was something she only ever admitted aloud to her girlfriends when they had their monthly marshmallow, nachos, and tequila film marathons.
Okay, Jess lied. She did have that one stupid girly nightgown that her grandmother gave her last Christmas that her mother refused to let her throw out, muttering dire warnings about everyone needing one decent nightgown in case she got run over by a bus and ended up in hospital or something equally outdated.
She’d hidden it in a case in the top shelf of their wardrobe along with some examples of her mother’s novelty jumpers that were too frightening to be allowed to see daylight.
Except that now, standing here in their bedroom, the one place she’d always felt safer than anywhere else, she was only afraid of one thing. And it wasn’t a jumper with a crocheted reindeer on it.
It was this man, the stranger who’d woken her up in the middle of the night. The man who was somehow holding that white nightgown gently between his hands.
She couldn’t hear anything. She knew she had to be going into shock. She was screaming. She knew she had to be screaming. Sam wasn’t there, and she knew she was screaming. And Sam wasn’t there.
Why?
‘Oh, trust me, sweetheart. The nightgown’s not for my benefit, even though I do like to call myself a traditionalist. It’s not even really for you. If it makes it any easier, think of it this way. Your boyfriend’s going to love seeing you in it.’
And Sam wasn’t there.
‘No, he isn’t. But don’t worry. He soon will be.’
Jessica? Don’t be bashful. No need to hide behind your hair. Such a pretty face. Isn’t that what your mother used to say? Come on, give me a smile.
There. Now that wasn’t hard, was it? You do want to look absolutely perfect for Sam, don’t you?
And Sam was there.