Dancing With Myself

I stood in front of my mirror, staring dubiously at my reflection. I was wearing my normal work attire of dark dress slacks and a respectable work blouse, but it wasn’t really my outfit I was parsing over. Rather it was the stuffed plastic band I clutched in my hands.

“Just put on some sexy underwear and dance around your house until you feel good again.”

My brow furrowed as I recounted my friend’s advice for the billionth time. It had been six months since my break up and I’d been having such a hard time recovering. I felt frumpy, and unsexy and just generally a hot mess. My best friend, Melissa, had noticed my struggle and after taking me out to a girl’s date with coffee and delicious deli sandwiches, she asked me what was wrong.

Once I admitted what I was down about, she declared that my self-confidence was in need of dire repair. But how did you patch up and ego after your boyfriend of six years cheated on you, only to run off and elope with their side woman? Was I not smart enough? Sexy enough? What made that woman so much better than me?

Of course my friend seemed to know that it was not going to be an easy road to get me feeling myself again. She had suggested a huge list of things I could do to give myself a boost, so I had chosen the easiest of them.

However, now that I was staring at my full length mirror, sexy and brand new lingerie in hand, I found myself intimidated by the whole process. Maybe I should try baby steps first. That’s what you did when you were riding a bike. I just needed some training wheels.

…Sexy training wheels?

I shook my head at the thought and rifled through the bag. My hands settled on a pair of pure white thigh highs and I decided that was how I was going to start my journey.

Abruptly all business, I changed out of my pants into a short, playful skirt that I liked to wear during the weekends in the summer. Then I sat on the edge of the bed and wrestled with the package. It took me longer than I would like to admit to open the darned thing, but eventually I had two white thigh high out and just waiting for me to put them on.

I debated over which one was the right one, and which one was the left before shrugging and picking one at random. I scrunched the top down to the foot just like I usually did with my pantyhose, before sliding my toes in.

The cool, stretchy fabric glided up my foot gracefully. Slowly, I pulled it up my leg, watching the delicate material surround and shape itself to my ankle, then my calf, my knee until it eventually settled at my thigh. It was rather pretty; seeing the curves and planes of my leg coated by pure white. I stroked the limb, enjoying the soft feel of the stockings beneath my fingertips, before sitting up and fumbling around with the remaining thigh high.

It slid up my body the same as the other, and I looked down once I finished. I had to admit, even with just the thigh highs on, I felt pretty darn cute. I rubbed my calves past each other, enjoying the smooth and somewhat slippery way they glided against one another. It was a peculiar, almost frictionless sensation, but at the same time I could kind of feel static building up along the garments.

Once I grew tired of that, I stood. Time to face the mirror.

It took me a solid five minutes of deep breathing and self-encouragement to open my eyes. I wasn’t sure when I had become so unable to see myself in a positive life. It certainly had started before the breakup. But there was no denying that it had accelerated quite a bit after the big shock.

Sighing, I forced myself to get on with it. My reflection looked so blasé from the wait up, but below…it wasn’t half bad. Grabbing my cell phone, I turned to one of my playlists and tried to let the music flow through me.

The best I could manage was kind of shuffling from foot to foot. No one had ever said I had rhythm. But as the song progressed, and I watched my calf muscles move under the thin, white fabric of my stocking, I got more into it. Before too long, I was sliding my stockinged feet across my floorboard, shaking my thighs while I shimmied. High kicks, can-cans, twists and dips, my thigh highs stayed up while I just moved however my body told me. Every time I glanced in the mirror, I saw a playful, confident woman in killer hosiery having a fun and looking good.

I lasted maybe a couple songs before I got a little too tuckered out, and I collapsed backwards onto my bed. I giggled a bit to myself, pausing to turn off my music before it killed my phone’s battery. Already feeling a bit better, I lifted my legs straight up into the air and wiggled my white-covered feet playfully. I was fairly impressed that these thigh highs had managed to stay up so well, clinging to me like a snowflake-white second skin. Absently, I peddled my legs, enjoying watching them move in the stockings, before my abdominal muscles protested.

Sitting up, I let out a long breath. It seemed Melissa was right. Maybe I wasn’t ready to shuck off all my clothing and dance around in my undies, but I had definitely made the tiniest sliver of progress in only about ten minutes. It was certainly a start.

I glanced down into my bag from the shopping binge I had earlier, and pulled out fishnets, fleece lined knee-highs, and two more pairs of thigh highs with garters at the top, one in midnight black and one in rainbow. Suddenly, I knew that I wasn’t going to be happy until I tried each one on and felt them cling to my toned legs as I danced around my apartment.

I was certainly in for a wild night.