Dare I? Read Free

from the player. It’s all perfect beyond anything she
can express.
    “I spend so much time out at night,” he
murmurs as she sits next to him, “but I never look up to the sky
anymore. I thought maybe you could teach me to see the stars
again.”
    They both take a sip from their glasses, then
lean in to share a kiss. Anna has a feeling he won’t see much of
the stars tonight either.

    * * * *

    By the time night fell, Anna’s annoyance had
turned into resolve. She would show them. The thought kept echoing
through her mind as she dug through her closet for that cocktail
dress she had buried in there months earlier when moving in the
small apartment. She would show them they were wrong, and that she
knew how to have a good time. They had made it sound as though she
had never had fun in her life. It was ridiculous. She had been to
dozens of parties in college. She had been out just about every
night, and had only stopped when she had started working and needed
to be up early every day. Then she had met Tim at Jessie’s wedding,
and since he had never been one for dancing they hadn’t gone out
much. She had missed going to clubs a lot, and…
    The truth hit Anna abruptly and knocked the
breath out of her. Clutching in her hands whatever dress she had
been pushing aside, she took two steps back and sat on the edge of
her bed, her legs practically giving out under her.
    As much as she had tried to convince herself
she had, she had not missed going to clubs, not one little bit. The
excuses had rolled off her tongue with ease for years now, first
her job, then Tim, but if she stopped for a moment and actually
examined what she had felt when declining invitations, the regret
she expected was not there. Instead, all she could find was
relief.
    She had been relieved not to have to go out
and dance; relieved not to have to pretend she enjoyed it, as she
had done throughout four years of college to blend in with her dorm
mates. It had taken her a long time to feel comfortable with her
body, and while she now trusted she looked good, even with curves
that some might have called superfluous, she had once dreaded to
feel eyes on her, and parties had sometimes been torture because of
it.
    Were her friends right, after all? Was she
truly unable to have a good time?
    During their last argument before their
break-up, Tim had thrown to her face that she was the most tedious
and boring person he had ever dated. She had rejected the
accusation as just one more jab destined to hurt her, but maybe Tim
had been right too, maybe she was boring.
    Her blood boiled at the thought that her ex
may have been right about anything. She could accept that her
friends saw her need to let out some steam, but she refused to give
credit to any of Tim’s opinions for even a minute. She would go to
that club, have fun, seduce a vampire or two, and show
everyone—show herself—that she was not that bland, boring image
that others sometimes mistook for her personality.
    Standing up again, she looked at the garment
in her hands. It wasn’t the one she had been looking for, but it
would do. She had bought it on impulse two or three years earlier,
loving both the color and feel of it on her skin, but she had never
dared wear it in public, not even for Tim. She quickly slipped out
of her bathrobe and slid on her most daring underwear, a black,
see-through thong and its matching bra, before putting the dress
on. She struggled a little to pull the zipper on the side all the
way up, but when she stood in front of the full-length mirror, she
was satisfied by what she saw.
    The red dress was tight, made of a soft,
stretch material that hugged her body and left very little to the
imagination. It stopped halfway down her thighs, and made her legs
seem endless. The top revealed her cleavage without being trashy,
and the wide straps rested far enough on her shoulders to leave her
neck completely exposed. She considered putting on a necklace, but
quickly gave up on the