Iron Bitch plans her outfit off and on all day. Halloween, so she can get away with anything for once in a damn while.

She swims laps at the pool. It has been a long time since she's swum laps, so she only does 16. Or fifteen. Loses count at the end. Three of crawl, two of breast stroke, letting part of her brain keep count and the rest in that meditative ramble.

Showers, washes her hair. Starts with the underwear. Black lace thong. Smallest flimsiest piece of underwear she owns. Loses it in the clean t-shirt in her swim bag but when she finally curses and gives up looking for it, it pops out of that lost sock dimension and there it is. Thongs rank with 5-inch pumps to her: uncomfortable and slightly sick and kinky. Though 5-inch spikes are worse.

Jeans and a t-shirt for now. Goes home. She and Baby clean the house. Sweep all the main rooms, clear the fucking piles of paper off the table, wash dishes and organize. Carve the pumpkin for a centerpiece. She puts a brussels sprouts tree in a vase: could any plant be more worrisomely phallic? She ignores the piles of books. Anyone who cares wouldn't come to her party even if she invited them.

Cooks. The suitor helps. She has done the shopping and half the cooking by the time he arrives. Algerian chicken, a recipe in her mother's handwriting, starts with four chickens, six hot sausages and six sweet sausages. She cut the recipe in half, only two chickens. She's never made it before. Doesn't care. She's sure it will be good. And pumpkin soup, with a pumpkin baked yesterday, a nod to the fucking inconvenient vegetarians. She adds onions to the chicken. Having a vegetable makes it healthy, right? The chicken is a recipe that makes the arteries clog just reading it. MMMmmm.

The Baby goes off with friends, the suitor to care for responsibilities and Iron Bitch is all alone. Time to get dressed.

Takes her t-shirt off. She adds a black bra, only underwire she owns, flowers and edged with lace. She pulls on the Mad Doctor t-shirt. Yep, can see the bra just a bit through it. Puts a short black cotton lycra skirt on underneath. Over the thong. Nice and nasty. Hose: black thigh highs with skulls and crossbones. She clips them to a pale ecru lace garter belt. She is not very good at hooking the garters onto the stockings: a learned skill and she's only ever worn one three times. Practice will make perfect. Lastly: the belt. Black leather printed with white skulls and crossbones, with a skull buckle. The buckle is a bottle opener. It hangs just at the upper edge of her pubic bone.

Makeup. She opens her paint-by-numbers makeup book and reviews the strung-out heroin look. She's been doing a variation by memory, but hers is toned down. She ramps it up. Black and blue and purple eyes, faint glitter over the skin and pale, pale juicy lipstick.

Iron Bitch admires herself in the mirror. Someone might get lucky. Iron Bitch gives Lady Luck a thumbs up. Lady Luck is on her side. Iron Bitch is ready to party.