Page 2 of Midnight Kisses (Spicy Fat Cinderella Retelling)

PERRY

My day started with getting fired. Twice.

Now it was thirty minutes before midnight and a gorgeous man in a suit that had to have cost more than I made in a year was offering to get on his knees and eat my pussy.

Well— half a suit. His pants were in my hand. The hand drier hadn’t done much for them.

There was no way I could have predicted the turn this day would take.

At 9am on the morning of New Year’s Eve, I’d been called mysteriously into my agent’s office.

As usual, I was early, way earlier than my appointment time, so I had to sit at reception for an hour.

This gave me a lot of time to ponder all the reasons for the call.

Maybe the curve clothing company that notoriously used the same fat model for everything was branching out, maybe a mainstream retailer was launching extended sizes, or maybe a sales business had come to the radical realisation that fat people also used candles/towels/cars.

Yes, I had plenty of time to ponder all of these scenarios, but still not enough that I guessed the real reason.

My agent was dropping me.

Liz said her clients didn't have enough ‘demand’ for plus size models.

“But—" she hastened to reassure me, her hand adorned with chunky cocktail rings heavy on my shoulder, “don’t let that stop you from re-applying in the future, Perry! We all adore you here.”

If only adoration paid my rent.

I knew my agent meant well and I didn’t want to make her feel worse, so I smiled through my hurt and told her I would re-apply again one day.

In my car in the inner city parking lot I let the tears go, but not for long because I had a casting call for event staff in the afternoon and I didn’t want to be late. Or worse, blotchy.

I mopped my tears and headed to the Sky Tower with repaired makeup and a smile I hoped was warm.

I’d wait-staffed for fancy events like this before.

They wanted hot people, but hot people who also knew how to balance plates or, in my case, check off names on a spreadsheet and smile as guests arrived.

My now ex-agent had gotten me this job and I’d initially demurred, hoping that my days of model-hyphen-waiter work were over and I could do just model jobs while I built my own business.

But Liz had wheedled, assuring me I would be placed on the door, and I felt bad saying no—which turned out to be a good thing, because I needed the money now that I didn’t have representation.

When I arrived at the event casting for the Purkiss Media party, the assembled model-hyphenates were a mix of many ethnicities and all very beautiful. All were under thirty, like me, but I was the only plus size person in the room. (A fat person always notices this).

The head of the event company, Momentum Events, was a thin woman with vivid orange lipstick which stood in stark contrast to her pale face and hair. Very square teeth split a smile that never wavered, even as she stared at me like she was trying to x-ray me.

Her name was Ginger, which was ironic because I’d never seen anyone so devoid of spice in my life.

“We’re going to do a bit of a shuffle,” Ginger announced once everyone had found chairs in the meeting room. Still wielding that fixed smile, her eyes flicked to me and then back around the room. Dread cracked over me then, cold and sticky, like egg yolk running down the back of my neck.

I knew what was going to happen even before it did.

“Just a few last minute changes,” Ginger continued. “Tamatha, I’m going to put you on door as greeter. Peri–uh…how do you say it?”

“Peregrine,” I said. “But you can call me Perry.”

“Perry, I’m going to put you in as our washroom attendant .”

A thin person who I assumed was Tamatha leaned back in their chair, looking first relieved, then guilty. Their eyes found mine and they mouthed, “ Sorry .”

I smiled back to show it was fine. This wasn’t their doing.

“Excellent.” Ginger clapped her hands. “Now, let’s go over the runsheet.”

Ginger had made the decision to remove me as greeter after seeing me in person.

Other people’s hang ups didn’t usually bother me, but I’d been caught off guard with this, and the hollows of my eyes began to ache. I swallowed repeatedly, trying to shake off more tears.

I’d been so careful to show myself accurately in the portfolio of images I’d submitted to Momentum.

My worst nightmare was catfishing someone into thinking I was thin.

It was the same on dating apps, I wanted people to know exactly what I looked like—I uploaded images that clearly showed my double chin and round figure.

Momentum had only asked for head and shoulders pictures, but maybe I should have included some full body shots?

I couldn’t help castigating myself for not doing more to avoid this horrible, sticky feeling. Maybe if I’d prepared better, if I’d anticipated this, I could have spared myself.

My smile, the carbon copy of Ginger's, felt wrong on my face, but I held it there for the duration of the briefing. I kept smiling even as all the other model-waitstaff were given a uniform. When Ginger handed me a medium t-shirt with a Momentum Events logo on the breast, I pretended to hold it up to see if it fit. I already knew I’d be lucky to get half a boob in there.

Eventually, Ginger figured that out too, and asked if I could bring something of my own from home to wear.

“Anything in particular?” I said politely.

“Just black.” She tossed her pale hair. “Anything that’s black.”

We, the staff-to-be, swapped chatter for a while.

I made sure to keep smiling even when a few of the other staff swapped complaints about their 'unflattering' uniforms right in front of me.

First, flattering was just a socially-acceptable word for skinny, and secondly, what they were really saying was that it would be their worst nightmare to look like me.

I tried not to let stuff like this bother me anymore because it was a fact of my fat life, but sometimes when I was caught off guard, thoughtlessness could still prickle.

I kept my twitchy smile in place until I was back in my little white car.

Driving home, I refused to let myself cry again.

One sob session per day was more than enough—any more would be bad for my skin.

Instead, I blasted emo music from 2005 the whole thirty-minute drive, nodding along with the thrashing beat.

It made me giggle when people in traffic next to me did a double take—my blonde hair and cherubic cheeks didn’t exactly shout goth babe .

Back home, I cooked some salmon and green beans with lemon for an early dinner and Googled what kind of things people needed in washrooms at fancy events. “Jackpot,” I muttered when I landed on a wedding planning blog which had a list of useful things to make available for guests in the bathroom.

Ginger had assured me that my job wasn’t the same as a cleaner, the venue already had cleaners.

I was supposed to hold open doors and give people wash towels, plus be ready for any of the usual bathroom emergencies that could happen at fancy events: torn stockings, mussed hairdos, smeared lipstick, stained dresses.

.. she’d suggested I might want to bring a few things in preparation and if I brought her the receipts, she would reimburse me.

Bold of her to assume my card wouldn’t decline; and I had to wonder why her company, which was being paid a lot to host this event, hadn’t done this.

But as my mum would say, ‘being annoyed won’t pave the path’, so I put it out of my mind, sourced what I could from home, and made a quick trip to the supermarket for things I couldn’t find.

Across my duvet I spread a small sewing kit, spare nylons, hair clips, aerosols of all kinds (anti-odour, flyaways, static) and bandaids, bobby pins, safety pins, lotion, tissues, stain remover, lint strips, mints and antacids.

I’d also added menstrual products, period pain relief, and a hand sanitiser that smelled vile and felt viscous.

After some consideration, I pulled open my top drawer and studied the rows of navy-blue frosted glass bottles with their pretty PS labels.

I chose my lavender room spritz for atmosphere, my facial spray with rosewater for cooling flushed skin, my all-purpose balm with kawakawa, and my fixing spray that held makeup in place without drying.

And, of course, my star product, the Perry Skin hand cream.

This was the first formula I perfected, and I never left home without it.

Say what you will, but in my personal opinion, dry hands were a fate worse than death.

I tipped out the plastic toolbox I kept all of my branded packaging in and packed everything neatly.

My flatmate Tala was also attending this party, but as a guest. I was optimistic on her account—Tala was about to be made redundant but had tickets to tonight’s event included in her severance package. It was an excellent opportunity for her to mingle among her peers in the media industry.

Ginger wanted all staff back at the venue by five, which was too early for Tala to head in, but my shift was due to finish at midnight so I could give her a ride home afterwards to save her the astronomical fare of a rideshare at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

Finally, all that was left to do was find an outfit. But studying every black t-shirt and black pants combo I had, I felt uninspired.

‘ Anything that’s black ’, Ginger had said.

Reaching deeper into my closet, I felt for the familiar softness of my trusty black body-con dress.

Designed by a celebrity with a shapewear obsession who was no doubt making clothes with thin bodies in mind, but her clothes came in extended sizing and looked divine on my thick body.

The ribbed stretch fabric was soft and buttery, skimming over my curves and emphasising the delectable curve of my belly.