Retail Therapy

Victoria's mother didn't need women's intuition to tell that something was wrong with her daughter as she returned from the washroom. She had gotten used to her confident demeanor...part of the whole "Goth" persona, she supposed: even though she had been uncomfortable out in public as a girl for the first time, she had nonetheless managed to comport herself with dignity.
But now Victoria gave off the impression of being dejected; a girl who was forcing herself to soldier on.
"Are you feeling alright, Victoria?" she asked.
Victoria nodded. "I guess so..."
"What's wrong?" her mother demanded, making clear that she couldn't evade the issue.
"Its nothing," Victoria smiled wanly; "I just...walked into the wrong bathroom on accident, and some guys were kinda pricks about it."
Victoria's mother nodded sagely.
"Guys can be jerks," said Zoe sympathetically
"Tell me about it..." her sister muttered distantly.
"Well, as it happens we women have a long and proud tradition in such circumstances," said her mother.
"Which is...?"
"Retail therapy!" she excalimed, prompting Zoe to roll her eyes. "Which, as it happens, is pretty much exactly what we came her for anyway."
"Nothing like plugging up the hole in your soul with a little crass consumerism," muttered Victoria.
Sometimes their mother wished that at least one of her daughters wasn't such a cynical Goth. "O ye of little faith..." she said. "But you'll see."
And after a while, Victoria had to admit that it did have a certain...therapeutic value. Not so much in buying the clothes (although she did that too), but certainly in trying them on. There was nothing quite as effective at making a woman feel like a princess as wearing a fancy dress. Not that Victoria, Gothic as she was, would have described herself as something so "girlie-girly" as a princess, but still...
She had to admit, however, that she was mildly pissed off by the fact that the clothes she was trying on seemed to be designed for impossibly-proportioned models, rather than real women. She was, at present, a few pounds underweight (as a result of GPAD burning through her stored-up calories like a wildfire through a drought-ravaged forest) and even still she looked like a cow in some of the dresses she was trying on. And maybe it was just her state of mind, but she couldn't help relating it back to those three losers who had harrassed her in the washroom; so much pain and suffering, so many hoops to jump through, all to titilate disgusting men like those guys...
But nevertheless, she was able to find enough dresses in which she did look attractive to restore her feminine pride.
But the spree was just getting started! After having purchased an expensive, black, open-backed dress for "special occasions," she moved on to more mundane ware; clothes for her to wear day by day. Of course, none of the stores in the mall (not even Hot Topic) sold any of the Victorian finery that she so loved, but she supposed she would have to order that online. So instead, she focused on more generally Gothic clothes--black t-shirts and skirts, leather dresses with red bustieres, some button-up blouses made of shiny dark fabrics (not just black but also red, purple, blue and green), even some new pants; girls' pants now, not like Jon's hideous old baggy, faded guy's pants. In every case, she loved the feel of the clothes, clinging to her body; she loved how they conformed to her womanly curves and presented her to the world like the female she was. She bought a few low-cut tops as well, happy to show off her new cleavage.
All of the clothes she bought were either tailored to Goth girls, or were dark enough that they could be worn that way, with only one exception; a tight, bluish purple t-shirt upon which was written, in green letters "anything boys can do...girls can do better."
While she was trying it on, Victoria wished that she could have taken a picture of herself and show it to Jon a week ago. She wondered how he would have reacted if he had been told that, in just a few short days, he would have turned into the girl in the photograph.
The thought made Victoria smile...