A Deeper Dimension by Amanda Carpenter Page B

turned her head lazily to the clock by the bed and sat bolt upright in bed. It was eleven-thirty in the morning! She had slept the whole morning away. Throwing off her covers and shrugging into her robe, she walked out into the hall and into the gleaming kitchen. There was a note on the table for her from Alex. It read: Dear Diana, if you show your face at the office before five, I’ll beat you silly.
    It was signed simply “A”. She laughed when she read it and, folding it, carefully set it aside. After a quick cup of coffee and a nourishing breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, she faced the perplexing problem of what to do with the rest of her day. What did one do with a free afternoon in the middle of New York City? She settled the problem in a typically feminine way: shop. Then she combed the streets of New York with nothing on her mind other than the delightful prospect of new clothes.
    Hours later, she let herself into Alex’s apartment laden down with packages. After kicking off her shoes and padding to the spare bedroom with her load, she set about opening her packages to lay out and take stock of what she had bought. The first package held a dark red sweater dress that clung to her figure lovingly to fall just below the knee. She set that aside; that was for the winter months, now coming up soon. Opening the next box, she pulled out a dusty black one-piece jumpsuit that zipped up the front and had tapering legs with a wide belt. She eyed it with some perplexity. It was a very chic outfit, figure hugging and attractive, but she had no idea where she would wear it.
    The last box was what she really wanted to look at. As she opened the box, she couldn’t resist the urge to try the dress on. Shaking it out, she once again felt the uncertainty she had experienced when the salesgirl had urged her to try the dress in the first place, for it seemed shapeless and unattractive in her hands, in spite of the delicately beautiful colour. It had several different shades of the palest lavender, the most delicate purple and the most subtle blues that she had ever seen. It had frankly cost the earth. She handled the dress with gentle hands as she slipped it over her head. After zipping the almost invisible zipper in the back, she went over to the full-length mirror and surveyed herself. What bodice there was to the top was low and very tight with tiny straps for her shoulders. The skirt was four layers of very thin and very light material that slid sensuously around her hips and thighs as she had put it on, and seemed to float when she walked. The colour faded as it went down the skirt until it ended in transparent jagged edges that stopped at her lower calf, giving tantalising glimpses of her legs when she moved. The muted hues somehow transformed her facial colouring and hair. Her lips were more red, her eyes more vivid, and her hair had a higher gloss. It was a graceful dress, lending a fragility to her tall slimness that she had never known before.
    After staring at herself for a long while, she finally took the dress off with a sigh. She would wear it at one of the formal parties that Alex had said would be coming up this autumn with her slender silver sandal shoes with the ridiculously high heels, and she would feel like a princess, regal and graceful, dancing the night away with a very tall, very big, dark man holding her close—she turned away from her thoughts with the desperation of one hunted. Suddenly becoming painfully brisk and businesslike, she set about packing her odds and ends quickly. She would not be coming back to the apartment tonight. She cleared up her shopping mess and picked up her toothbrush from the bathroom. She tried to feel happy about staying in her own apartment, but all she felt was emptiness.
    When faced with the dilemma of changing for dinner, Diana happily got out her black jumpsuit and slid into its close-fitting length and zipped the zipper up. It stopped just above her bra, showing a