The Elevator Seventy-Fourth Floor (Patreon)

Cardonali the magical imp was doing what he always did, he caused  trouble to others for his own amusement. Cardonali had the ability to  put any thought into a person's mind and manipulate them as he wanted  to. He stood unobserved or at least unacknowledged in the back of an  elevator waiting to see who would get in.

Jarold phoned his friends to tell them that Katherine and himself would be late.

When he got off the phone, Katherine was still staring at him.

"I don't know why you are mad at me.  I'm not the one who made us late."

"It's just that you don't understand.  It takes a lot to get dressed up.  It doesn't take just a few minutes like for you."

"Then you should have started earlier."

"I did start early.  But something came up and I had to adapt.  You know what adapting is.  It takes time."

"If you were prepared, then there wouldn't be a problem."

"You don't know what goes in to looking pretty."

"I know."

That is when Cardonali stepped in.

"Oh, you are going to find out.  Next week we are going on a picnic and you are going to see all it takes to be pretty.  I'll make sure."

"Yeah, whatever."

Cardonali prevented Jarold from saying 'No' to Katherine about anything.  He didn't want to go along with her but he couldn't help it.

It all started the next day, Sunday.  Katherine took Jarold out on a shopping trip to get apparel that would make him look as pretty as possible.  They were inside stores for over eleven hours.  But it took longer than that in that excluded the travel time between stores.  Katherina had him try on scores of outfits.  Not just dresses, but tops and skirts and even blouses with dress pants in an effort to find the right outfit for him.  Jarold hated every minute of it, but he couldn't refuse any request by Katherine.

No one saw Jarold as he changed in dressing rooms where only Katherine was around.  But he was still mortified that someone might see him.   He convinced himself that Katherine would relent, but as the days dwindled, and more and more hours were devoted to things such as shopping for accessories, makeup try-on to see which colors worked best for him, getting his ears pierced for the inevitable earrings he would be wearing, Jarold's apprehension kept growing.

Then he heard the words, "We have a 6 o'clock appointment for you at the hair salon Friday."  Jarold was completely mortified.

On that fateful day, Jarold had been decked out very prettily for the 'leisurely' picnic in the park among scores of other picnickers.  His hair was perfect, his face made up, a beautiful dress, hose over his shaved legs, accessories, lots of jewelry, and the rest.  But Jarold got the last laugh when Katherine had to admit, "I'm sorry, Honey.  You were right.  I should have prepared better!"

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