Alice Brown's Lessons in the Curious Art of Dating by Eleanor Prescott Page B

daft!’ Ginny laughed. ‘I think a nice, safe little black dress is more your thing.’
    Relief flooded through Alice’s body.
    It was short-lived.
    ‘I thought you said women went clothes shopping for fun,’ she growled several hours later as she discarded the umpteenth dress and reached for her jeans.
    ‘Obviously they’ve never been shopping with you.’ Ginny slumped on the changing-room floor in exhaustion. ‘Right, so you’ve hated pretty much everything so far.’ She darted a murderous look at Alice. ‘But the things you’ve hated most have been tight, feminine, or shown more than a millimetre of flesh. So what have we got on the plus side?’
    There was a very long pause.
    ‘Well, you don’t have much up top . . .’ Ginny mused finally, nodding towards Alice’s bust, ‘. . . but you’re slim, toned, and you’ve got great legs. You know, maybe you could pull off a backless dress?’ She sounded positive for the first time in hours.
    ‘A backless dress?’ Alice echoed in alarm. ‘Aren’t they a bit dangerous?’
    ‘They’re dresses, not hand grenades!’
    ‘Well, a bit revealing, then?’
    ‘Nope, that’s the whole point. You’re not showing your legs or your boobs, just a back. Who cares about a back?’ Ginny leapt up. ‘Stay there! We’re going to crack this.’ And she darted back out to the shop floor.
    Alice forlornly undid her jeans.
    Two minutes later Ginny zipped Alice into a backless satin dress. ‘You know, the dress would look a whole lot better if you took your socks off,’ she said sarcastically.
    Reluctantly Alice bent down and pulled them off.
    ‘That’s better!’ Ginny sounded cheery. ‘Look!’
    Alice turned and looked at herself in the mirror. And to her great surprise she didn’t hate what she saw. From the front, she was covered up. The dress started at her collarbone, and although it was sleeveless, it hugged her armpits so that her chest was completely hidden. And the hemline was just below the knee. If only the dress had a back, it would be perfect.
    ‘And if you could just stick these on’ – Ginny reached behind her and pulled out a pair of peep-toe stilettos – ‘it would look twice as good again!’
    Alice eyed the shoes suspiciously. They looked hazardously high. Surely you could break your ankles in those. But she caught a glimpse of Ginny’s face. It wasn’t a face to be messed with. She backed into the changing room, sat down and wriggled her feet into the shoes.
    Instantly her feet became ladies’ feet, not her own feet at all. Her foot contorted into a delicate, ladylike arch and her toes winked flirtily out of the peep toe. Gingerly shestood up. She felt the spindly stiletto heels wobble a bit and then settle. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it wasn’t the razor-blade experience she’d been expecting either. Like a baby giraffe she took a few uncertain steps.
    ‘Bloody hell!’ Ginny exclaimed, a hint of marvel in her voice. ‘I think we’ve done it!’
    She stepped forward, scooped Alice’s hair off her shoulders and held it loosely on top of her head.
    ‘Look!’ she commanded.
    Alice blinked. She couldn’t believe it. The person blinking back at her was a woman: an actual, feminine woman! The long expanse of skin from her hairline to the base of her spine looked lean, healthy and – Alice blanched as she even thought the word –
sensual
. The dress tapered to reveal shapely, bicycle-toned calves that led to the sexiest pair of feet Alice had ever seen. The shoes were amazing. Her feet had somehow transformed into film-star feet. It was a miracle!
    Her eyes met Ginny’s.
    ‘I’ll take it,’ she heard herself say. ‘All of it.’
    Four hours, five hundred pounds and two bottles of Sauvignon Blanc later, Ginny and Alice were back at the bicycle stand, cheeks flushed with alcohol as late-night shoppers milled around them. Alice didn’t normally drink much, but the dress and shoes made her look like another person, and