decided to take a shower—after warning me that candles were dangerous and asking me not to use them again in the apartment.
By the time he came out of the bathroom, I was wearing a flannel robe instead of my new negligee, and I didn’t think he noticed the difference. He had a late supper of gluten-free lasagna and fell asleep in front of the TV.
I was pretty discouraged by now, but I’m no quitter. I was in a relationship, we were making a home together, and I was not going to let this gradually fall apart just because I didn’t try hard enough. Fearing that I was in danger of becoming little more to Bryce than a live-in housekeeper, I decided to go for broke.
One of the unexpected things I’d discovered about him while living together was that this handsome Ivy League lawyer from a genteel family had a secret, intense, and feebly-denied thing for babes in brass bras. No, not strippers or show girls. I mean fantasy heroines.
Bryce owned all six seasons of Xena: Warrior Princess on DVD, and the screen saver on his personal laptop was a collection of sultry photos of the warrior princess in her skimpy black leather costume and bronze breastplate. He had bookmarked various YouTube clips from an old movie called Conan the Barbarian (which had apparently starred a muscle-bound California governor), all of which segments featured a lithe woman warrior dressed in armor much too tiny to interfere with her skilled sword-wielding. One of his most treasured possessions was a poster of someone called Princess Leia wearing a brass bikini while fighting bad guys in Return of the Jedi (another oldie). He owned a big collection of Red Sonja comics (“the She-Devil With A Sword”), and he had a lifelong crush on Wonder Woman.
So maybe the reason he’d rejected (or just ignored) me on Sunday wasn’t, as I thought at the time, that he’d been overwhelmed by stress. Maybe he hadn’t responded to me, wearing my lacy negligee and posed invitingly in a candlelit bedroom, because that image didn’t represent his dream date. His fantasy involved a sexy warrior woman who would sweep him off his feet.
Okay, I could do that.
I mean, no, I couldn’t slay half an evil emperor’s army with my amazing sword skills. But I could certainly rent a skimpy warrior princess outfit at a costume shop and do some role-playing with my boyfriend. Dressing up for sex games was a little outside my experience (okay, completely outside), but I didn’t have a problem with it. And if fulfilling Bryce’s erotic fantasies would bring us closer together, then it was worth the effort—and worth whatever discomfort I might experience in a chainmail bra.
As luck would have it, the opportunity to enthrall Bryce by playing his lusty lady warrior occurred only a few days later.
My temp assignment at the time was at a data-processing company, and as I was leaving work that day, planning to get a quick bite to eat before heading to my evening class, I received a text message that changed my plans. My professor was stuck at an airport, all flights delayed until further notice, and so class was canceled.
I was just about to phone Bryce and suggest we do something together that evening, if he wasn’t stuck at the office, when I suddenly realized what we could do together. And I wanted it to be a surprise.
I put away my phone and started walking in the direction of a costume shop I’d seen a few blocks away. When I got there, finding the right outfit was easier than I had expected (so maybe a lot of girls’ boyfriends have the same fantasy). I was able to choose from a wide selection of brass bras and chainmail teddies they had in stock.
The outfit I settled on was not exactly me, but it was fun to wear, and I looked more natural in it than I’d expected. It had a tight metal bodice (not the most comfortable thing in the world), a chainmail loincloth, and thigh-high boots with faux-fur trim. It came with a dainty, little silver-horned helmet that was just darling, and there was even a big sword. The sword was just for show, and it was no sharper than a spoon; but it was sturdy and heavy, and it looked wicked scary.
I couldn’t wait for Bryce to see me in this.
Since this outfit was tricky to get into, I decided not to change back into my