~~~ Beginning ~~~

By the time Trisha sat down to order a café Latte’, she was perspiring lightly. A whole day to herself. Bliss! Three hours in the women’s wear and lingerie department. Picking up this and that, holding barely wrought pieces of fabric up and giggling, albeit a little enviously.

In the eighteenth century, painters would have fallen over themselves to paint her. Now it was all slim and trim and tight butts. Skinny girls with bony shoulders and teeny tiny tits in tube tops. Of course that wasn't what men really wanted. Brainwashed! She wondered if the designers did it on purpose so they could earn more money for less material. Probably. She smiled a little ruefully. But there had been a few sexy things for the 'fuller figure’.

Ohh how twee! The fuller figure! Not that she was fat. Every ounce....well, not everyone, but nearly everyone was proportionate. Trisha felt comfortable in her body. White silk cami-knickers. She just had to buy them. Gorgeous lacy half cup bra's that would make her breasts spill over the top of a low cut gown.
It didn't matter what people said...the media said, she had seen the appreciative glances of men unable to cast their eyes away from two great snowy mounds billowing ....billowing! Now there's an erotic word! She mused.

Another stunning blonde long-legged, long-haired California girl strolled by in jeans so tight that the seam disappeared into her groin. What's got into me? She thought, feeling her own sensations, and knowing what the girl was doing to herself secretly. A little bomb burst low down in her belly, and a wet thrill colored up her cheeks. She squeezed her thighs together, enjoying the warm squishiness down there.

It was that shop! Not the K Mart...The other shop. Lord! How had she ever had the nerve to go in there? But she had done it as brazenly as could be. The man behind the counter was quite obviously effeminate, but until he spoke there was no way of telling. Muscles on muscles, thin waist, and a hard body trying to burst out of a size too small snow white t-shirt. She was glad there was no one else in the shop. Faced with a cornucopia of strange delights, Trisha felt a bubble of panic. I'm only looking! She told herself severely. Now don't be silly! These shops are here because lots of people want them to be! Anyway, she was curious.

The manager smiled at her. Not a sleazy smile, but a wide open friendly one that lit up his tanned face. She almost laughed out loud when he spoke. "Hello ma'am. Ith there anything I can help you with?" His voice was gentle and feminine, and the lisp was genuine, and not affected.

"Umm..." Trish looked around quickly. She didn't know what to say to him. But he was good. Intuitive. Something told him she was a first timer. A middle aged woman feeling a bit old and perhaps a bit frumpy. Perhaps widowed a year or two. If that's what he thought he would have been almost spot on.

"I'll leave you to look.” He said. "If you need anything pleath don't be afwaid to ask. There'th lonjewwy (he meant lingerie) and twy on rooms at the back...but I don't wecommend the lonjewwy. Men buy it for women, and ith's always tacky. Better to buy good thtuff in a clathy lonjewwy shop." He laughed and showed white teeth. It broke the ice, and Trisha said "Well that's honest anyway! Thanks."

"Oh... men can be tho tacky!" He breathed.

Trisha didn't believe she had said it until it was out, standing there shocked at her own words. "Tacky or not, I could use one". Did I just say that!!? The manager just giggled. "Me too!"

Loneliness had been stalking Trisha for a couple of years now. She had felt old at 47, but now 50! It felt like old age. Old and lonely. Damn the man! She hadn't been ready for it. Youth spun away on golden wings. Most of the time she felt nineteen in the head, but the mirror dashed any hopes of really believing it. And who wanted...who wanted a marriage…damn it! Who wanted an old woman anyway? That's it. She had said it. Not aloud, but said it anyway. She'd said it every day for last twenty-six and a half years. Why she lived that long anyway? And for Gods sakes today she felt...the word wandered around in her head, bouncing around like the steel ball in a pinball machine. Not horny, but she wanted a man. Wanted to do everything all happy couples did. Lots of things...anything. She wanted to be loved and wanted. That too!

Steel balls. That's what they looked like. Two steel balls, but lighter than that, strung together on a red silk thread. She held them together in her hands. Inside there was something else. Some heavy liquid. Trisha swilled them around in her palm, fascinated. She laughed, like a child. "What on earth are these?"

The manager left the glass display counter and wandered over. He smelt of cinnamon and musk. Even knowing he was terminally gay didn't stop the thrill of his sensuality close to her. He was just such a perfect specimen. What a waste!
"Duo balls." He said, taking them from her palm and swilling them around in his. "Put them inthide yourself, and you can walk awound all day with a thmile on your fathe."
"Outside?" Trish gasped, coloring up again. "Outhide or inthide. No one would know. You can have orgasms all day."
She giggled. "Do they really work?"
"Twy them" The manager said, pulling a fresh packet from the shelf. "If you think they're no good, there'th no charge."
"Here?"
He laughed again. "Ath you can tell, I'm gay…and I've theen everything there ith to thee. Ith my job.... And if ith any contholathion I love thexth...thyamlethly. Come on, twy them. The twy on wooms over there." His impediment , though pronounced was rather bewitching.

Trisha hesistated. She wanted to flee, quickly and never come back. She should never have come in. She'd only intended to look, and even that intent had been more subliminal then intentional. But here she was and the shop was redolent with sensuality and sexuality. She no longer felt any real guilt at being here. In fact when she considered it, she felt positively sexy. Her skin felt silky and sensitive. Oh and the thoughts milling around in her head! Something was consuming her with want. It was both pleasant and an ache. An ache of absolute longing.

She took a breath, and made a decision. "Alright! I will!" The young man smiled again, so easily that it made her feel happy inside. He wanted her to be happy and have some pleasure. And she would.

She closed the little cubicle door, and dropped her plastic bag of packages on the seat. Full length wall mirrors on three sides, and on the door, a smaller mirror. The effect was that no matter where she turned she could see three of her. Were they trick mirrors, she wondered. The woman gazing at her was big, and soft. Full bodied and actually...attractive. She smiled into the mirror and waved a silly girlish little wave. And even that looked attractive. On the back of the door, below the mirror a tiny glass cabinet held a selection of scented creams, jellies, and perfumes. She slid open the panel and took out a blue and white tube of jelly. I'm really doing this! She thought, a delicious thrill bursting in her heart. She looked at the jelly. God! I'm not going to need this!

With a shudder of pleasure she reached down and rubbed herself through her thin summer dress, then turned, and watched herself slowly hitching the hem up. Staring in disbelief at the wantonness of this other woman in the mirror, teasing. The woman's panties, sensible white lacey cotton. She blushed.

Trisha sat down, legs weak, and leaned against the mirror on the back wall. There was no coyness now in the way she spread her legs. She wanted them wide, almost 3 feet wide. Wide so that she could see herself in the mirror, like they show in movies. Trisha turned to her side, pulled her dress a little higher; most of her thigh was visible. She had never really looked at it like this before. It's beautiful! She fanned her hands like an open butterfly. “Pretty”, she whispered aloud, unaware that the thoughts had been vocalized. She felt her tummy, right up to the womb. For a few moments Trisha had forgotten what she had entered the room for until she spied the little metal balls.

The woman in the mirror rolled the duo balls in her palm. Surprisingly they were warm, not cold metal. Something seemed to swim inside them pushing tiny waves of commotion through her. Trisha watched, fascinated. In the mirror this big, beautiful, soft, blonde woman with sparkling eyes, and full blood -filled lips melted into ecstasy. The woman was perspiring through her thin dress. She blushed further. She has never seen herself so attractive. It seemed as if the one in mirror was someone else. Trisha thought.

She pouted her lips. Small mewling sounds escaped her throat. Her eyes tried to squeeze shut, but she had to watch. Watch the woman in the mirror, the big, beautiful, sumptuous earth-mother bringing herself to a billowing...billowing!

Trisha sat for a while, weak kneed and quivering. She felt good. She felt desirable. Like the woman in the mirror. The woman in the mirror had seduced her. And she had enjoyed it. Every second of it. She stood up, hitched up her dress quickly, slipped her hand through her hair and dabbed some gloss on her lips. The duo balls rested comfortably and sensuously in her palm. With a smile...her own secret smile, she opened the door and stepped out into the store. Turning she looked at the woman in the mirror. She winked! Of course she didn't.

The manager smiled a knowing smile, of course misinterpretated but Trisha took it for what it was; their own conspiracy. "I... I think I'll take them. And....you won't need to wrap them up" The man giggled, saw the duo balls clinched in her fist and touched her arm lightly. He was close and that smell of cinnamon and musk met her nose again. A clean, spicy smell. Impulsively she leaned and kissed him quickly, briefly on the cheek, thankfully. For a moment something else entered his face. The smile almost but not quite, dropped away, and his eyes glistened, but so quickly it could have been an illusion. He touched his hand to his cheek. Then giggled again. "I've been touched in a wot of pwaces, but that'th the nithetht kith ever! Did anyone ever tell you you're a vewy beautiful woman?"

No. Trisha thought. No one ever did. And as if reading her thoughts the man answered. "Well you are...vewy"

Now, sitting at the sidewalk table, dipping a plastic spoon into a fresh café Latte’, she was aware of the looks. She was being appraised... admired, and some of the admiring glances came from young men half her age. And a few women too.

A whisper of cool air played around her hair whisking her cheeks. And the little balls rolling in her hand gently. She smiled soothingly!

A good looking man, perhaps in his mid thirties passed her by with a quick glance, and having passed her did a graceful three-sixty degrees to stare quickly, smile, and wave with an air of slight embarrassment at his impulsive action. Trisha smiled back.

She sat for a half hour more drinking in the street, before picking up her bags to go. But she couldn't resist a last look across the street to the little shop with its nondescript entry. No neon lights, no garish advertising. Just a painted over window with the name of the business on it, and a few other words. She had passed it by a thousand times and not really noticed it until today. Also today she had discovered her new self, an absolute new stance, a new beginning... She felt like Aphrodite. For sure it was the consequence of the “Aphrodite’s Mirror"…