The Living Statue

25.

This chapter is dedicated to ANA0072 who has been here since the very beginning, posting comments, voting and giving me advices all along :)

Two hours later we were at some fancy shop on Champs-Élysées, me trying on the clothes Mr Torres had previously picked out and him sitting on a circular, velvet seating with his legs crossed and face as blank as the grim reaper's, shooking his head disapprovingly every time I re-emerge from a dressing room.

This whole process had been repeating itself for over than an hour and there wasn't a single dress that bloody Statue found even mildly appropriate for the meeting. Needless to say, I was drenched in sweat after trying on the third dress, and I was now about to try the twenty-fifth. Yes, I counted.

It turned out he had planned it all along. This changing game he pretended he didn't enjoy. But I knew better. He was thrilled to see me suffer under endless layers of hideous, puffy dresses we both knew I wouldn't wear in the end. There were several of them I would've bought for my grandmum, though.

I protested at first, but there was no point in trying to oppose him. He was an insufferable, stubborn, pig-headed man. A spieces I have never come across before. He was a bigger pain in the arse than my sister, and that's nearly impossible. But the difference was that to Arabella I could say 'piss off' or whatever unladylike word that came to my mind, but to him I couldn't.

The bloody curse of a business contract.

I thought there was no bigger control freak than me, but there he was, making me put on dresses so that he could make sure I looked exactly as he wanted.

I should've known he had malicious intentions the moment he had told me to wear something casual. I should've guessed there was something wrong with 'Wear something casual' coming from a man who most likely sleeps in a suit.

For the twenty-fifth time, I emerged from the dressing room, this time wearing a repellent, neon-yellow creation which would probably cause bigger repugnance among wider public than Lady Gaga's meat dress. Mr Torres nearly choked on his champagne when I stepped in front of him.

Well, joke's on him. He was the one who made me put it on in the first place.

I leaned down so that our eyes were on the same level. He could barely witthold his laughter. "What? You're not really into walking road signs, sir?" I inquired sarcastically.

He ran a hand down his face — the first sign of supressing an unbearable urge to laugh — and leant back in his mushy seating. "It's not that bad."

Oh yes, you just enjoy sitting there, in that comfortable piece of furniture, laughing at your own employee.

I think I'd never had a bigger urge to hit him than at this very moment, hovering over him in this hideous creation that made me look like a living traffic light.

"Yes, sir. Not bad, indeed. Maybe I should go in this lovely dress, after all. What do you say?" I set about finding the price tag, frantically folding its mesh flounces and searching inside its enormous, puffy sleeves. Once I found it, I nearly passed out. "Yes, and you would pay exactly —" I checked the price again, just in case I didn't see it correctly the first time "— seven hundred and twenty five euros. Fantastic, splendid! Let's buy it right away."

I was on the verge of being hysteric. I wanted to rip the bloody fabric, just so I could breath again. It made me think of poor queens and princesses who had to wear all those corsets and endless layers just to get one complementary word from a man. Well fuck that man. Fuck all of them. But most of all, fuck Mr Torres.