Free Great-Aunt Sophia's Lessons for Bombshells by Lisa Cach Page B

peered over the edge of the box and was confused to see a colorful array of tissue paper, lace, and silk. “PJs and underwear?” she asked. No one had chosen her underwear for her since she was fourteen.
    “Darling, please. Children wear PJs and underwear. Women wear lingerie .”
    Grace picked a peach silk tank top out of its tissue paper wrapping, and her confusion turned to delight. She had always secretly yearned for silk pajamas. She went through the box, eager to find the other half of the set. “Did they forget to send the bottoms?”
    Sophia reached in and hooked a scrap of silk by her finger, raising it up for Grace. “Here.”
    Grace blinked at the G-string, with its tiny triangle of fabric and its strip of satin elastic butt floss, and felt her delight fade. She should have known Sophia wouldn’t buy her anything she’d want to wear. “I can’t wear that.”
    “It’s in your size.”
    “You know what I mean. I’d look ridiculous.”
    “You’ll only look ridiculous if that’s how you feel.”
    Grace poked a finger into her thigh. “How I feel won’t change the shape of these, or the size of my butt.” She went back to the box, her skepticism increasing with every item she pulled out of its tissue paper.
    Garter belt. Black and red push-up bra. White lace negligée that would conceal nothing bigger than a freckle. More G-strings, and panties made of stretch lace.
    The lavender satin item in the bottom of the box pushed her over the edge. It was a corset. A goddamned corset , with black lacetrim. Grace lifted the offending item and its matching panties out of the box and glared at her aunt. “Exactly how far back in time do you intend to push women’s liberation?”
    Sophia beamed. “Isn’t it beautiful? The Victorians understood a thing or two about female sexual power. They say that men would faint at the sight of a woman’s ankle.”
    Grace rolled her eyes. “Only you could see sexual power in the oppression of Victorian women.”
    “Why else do you think the men were so obsessed with oppressing them? They were terrified of the strength of their own desires. Give a woman an hourglass figure and then put a ‘do not touch’ sign on her, and a man can think of doing nothing else.”
    “While the poor woman struggles to breathe, and has her organs displaced by a medieval torture device.”
    “There’s an elastic panel in the back of this one, so you’ll be quite comfortable wearing it under your clothes.”
    Grace laughed in disbelief. “Do you have a hoop skirt for me, too?”
    “I’m not putting you in costume, darling. I’m simply asking you to wear lingerie that says something other than ‘abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’ You must dress as if you believe yourself a woman of sexual substance, who invites the admiration of men.”
    “And a corset and G-string are supposed to do that for me?”
    “You cannot achieve a sex-vixen mind-set while wearing granny panties.”
    Grace groaned and sank down onto the sofa. The lingerie spread over the coffee table represented everything she had spent her life trying not to be. To dress in such froth would be to say her value was determined solely by the sexual desire of men.
    “No,” she murmured.
    “What was that, darling?” Sophia said, examining a transparent pink chiffon robe with marabou trim.
    Grace held her hand palm out at the lingerie, as if to stop it from existing. “I don’t want it.”
    Danger glinted in Sophia’s green eyes. She set down the robe. “And why not?”
    “It’s not who I am.”
    “We have already established that for this summer, you will be other than you have always been. God knows we have a lot of work ahead of us; do not tell me you balk at a mere upgrade to your lingerie.”
    “It’s not mere to me. You keep talking about sexiness coming from within, and all bodies being beautiful, yet you try to dress me in a corset that changes my shape.”
    “It’s not your shape I’m trying to