Cuento de Mi Id

“The Surprise Party”

It was a scenario that Ashley had seen in a thousand sitcoms; the hurried single woman rushes home to take a quick bath, undresses in her darkened foyer and then enters her living room just in time to be greeted by a surprise party.

And yet they never say what happens next.

Does the poor woman run back into the darkened foyer in order to hastily redress and then rejoin her guests?

Does she eventually lower the hands she raised to unsuccessfully safeguard her modesty and then pretend to be a good sport about the whole thing?

Does she choose to play the role of the modest maiden and faint, hoping against hope that her guests will be gone when she awakens?

Or does the sitcom woman do what Ashley now does -- reach behind her upper back and start tugging on the small, flesh-colored zipper which is hidden there?

Aye, there's the ticket. After all, Ashley had already revealed enough of herself to the crowd before her. Why not go ahead and reveal the whole thing?

She smiles as the zipper descends and her real self emerges from her skin-tight birthday suit. Already the smiles are fading and the laughter is becoming more and more nervous.

“What's the matter?” she wants to ask them. “Haven't you ever seen a naked woman before?”

Then the last of her covering drops onto the floor and Ashley steps out of it in all her true glory.

“Surprise,” she starts to say, but her words, alas, are drowned out by screams.