WWAC: The Un-pleated Non-dress

WWAC: The Un-pleated Non-dress

by Ashley B. D. Zacharias

“I hereby call this meeting of the Wicked Women’s Adventure Club to order.” Lydia looked at the four women sitting around the table and nodded. “I would like to take this opportunity to introduce our newest member, Miss Amelia Cox.” The four other members nodded at the young woman with the short blond hair and muttered soft words of welcome. She nodded back, nervously. The introduction was needlessly formal because she had met three of these four women already; and had told two of them a considerable amount about herself. But if this was the club ritual, then who was she to argue? “Amelia is a senior analyst at Hawthorne, Blake, and Powell Consulting where she hopes to make junior partner within the next year.” There was polite applause. “Certainly we will do what we can to help her succeed.” More enthusiastic applause. “Amelia has been fully briefed by Trixie and understands the nature of our club. Today, she is ready to participate in her first adventure.” Even more enthusiastic applause. The other members of the club could see fear lurking beneath Amelia’s brave smile and empathized – each of them felt exactly the same fear when it was their turn for an adventure. Not just before their first adventure, but before every adventure. Each adventure was so different from every other, that, no matter how often a woman had participated before, the next adventure was still a new experience. Part of their enthusiasm in welcoming Amelia came from the other women’s relief that it would not be her who would be suffering the adventure this time.

But each member also felt a little let down for exactly that reason.

Amelia was bemused by the phrase, “fully briefed,” because she felt anything but. She had been told that the club was a small group of professional women who supported each other’s careers by engaging in a variety of “erotic adventures.” Other women might try to sleep their way up the corporate ladder, but the members of this club distained such boring and uncertain means to success. When you fish off the company dock, invariably you create a situation that comes back to hurt you in any number of unpleasant ways, from office gossip that destroys reputations to revenge by former lovers as you move on up. These women solved that problem by cross-pollination. Amelia would never have to have a personal relationship with anyone at HBP because the other women in the room would do that for her. But the quid pro quo was that she would put herself out there to assist the other women in this room when they needed personal help.

During the briefing, though, Trixie had been adamant that the word, “adventure,” was not a euphemism for prostitution. These women had far too much self respect to simply sleep with men in exchange for career advancement. Rather each adventure was an elaborate and interesting game in its own right. It merely an incidental bonus that the games could be designed so that the stakes included mutual career advancement.

When Amelia had tried to get some sense of the nature of these adventures, she had been put off with assurances that it was impossible to explain because each adventure was entirely different from any other adventure. Sometimes they involved engaging in sexual acts, but not always. Usually they involved a competition with a winner and loser, but not always. Nothing was ever certain. When Amelia had wondered if an adventure might involve picking up a man in a bar and spending the night with him, the other women had only laughed. “Nothing nearly as simple as that, my dear. That would be downright boring. If you wanted to do something that crude, you wouldn’t need an adventure club, you could just go trolling on your own. Nope. Our adventures are far more exciting than that.” Amelia was fast realizing that excitement is just a euphemism for terror. But the popularity of horror movies and roller coasters provided ample evidence that people liked to experience terror. In the right setting.

So here she was, sitting in Lydia’s dining room, waiting to hear what kind of sexual adventure these women had created for her.

Lydia began by laying out the background. “Jeanne managed to win a contract for Brigstone Defense. Successful completion of this contract requires the development of new network management software for a military command and control system within the next year. It is critical to her career that this contract be completed successfully, but she cannot do that unless she can recruit a team of exceptional software developers. MIT holds a number of software development competitions for senior students and she has been wooing the winners of one of those competitions, but the team members have made it clear that they would rather work for a computer game startup than a defense contractor. Offers of substantially more money and appeals to their patriotism have fallen on deaf ears. We have raised the stakes by offering them a very special signup bonus if they will accept her offer.”

Amelia suddenly realized that her body was about to be offered as a “signup bonus” for a bunch of geeks. This wasn’t exactly what she would consider an erotic adventure. Maybe it was time to put a stop to this whole idea; walk out of the room and never see these women again.

Lydia noticed that Amelia was looking uncertain, but she continued talking, “The signup bonus that we have offered them is as follows. They are going to be given an opportunity to play a game against a beautiful woman. If they win, she will spend the night with them. If they lose, tough luck. They get nothing, but they still work for Jeanne for a year. They understand that the game is fair, that they have as much chance to lose as to win. And we have assured them that the game involves skill rather than chance. If they play well, they are likely to win; if Amelia plays better, then they are likely to lose. These guys love games. As long as the game is transparent, as long as they see that if they had been just a little smarter, played just a little better, that they would have won, then they won’t mind having lost. And, I hope, that as long as Amelia sees that she has a fair chance to win, then she will enjoy competing against them. Three MIT graduates who beat their classmates in a technology competition are no intellectual slouches. But I believe that any member of our club is an intellectual force to be reckoned with in her own right. And this game takes place in the real world, not in some computer. These guys aren’t all that worldly, if the truth be known. So, Amelia, do you accept the challenge? Are you prepared to play the game and pay the price if you lose?”

Amelia looked back at Lydia with wide eyes. “I don’t know. What kind of game is it?”

Lydia looked disappointed. “You won’t know the rules until the game starts and neither will they. It’s not a game of chess; it’s an adventure. It will require wit and imagination. And it will be fair to both sides. This is all any of you will know before the game starts. Are you up to the challenge or not?”

There was a long period of silence. Amelia looked at the other women, one by one. They looked back expectantly. She had joined the club because she wanted an erotic adventure. This was her opportunity. “I accept the challenge.”

The other women applauded long and loud. After the applause died out, Lydia said, “Welcome to our club, Amelia. You are a brave and bold woman. You are one of us.”

For an instant, Amelia felt brave and bold and her chest swelled with pride. Then she asked herself what would a woman would have to do to be ‘brave and bold?’ She had no answer and felt her pride drown under a wave of fresh fear.

She consoled herself with the thought that whatever was coming, these women had already done similar things themselves. If these adventures had made these women the confident, successful people that she saw here, then it could not be too bad. Could it?

“The game begins at twelve noon next Saturday in the Prudential Center. We will meet at the Free People Store in the Boyleston Arcade.” As the women rose, Lydia addressed Amelia, “I’ll pick you up at your house. You’ll be riding in my car. Don’t bring a purse, but we’ll need to borrow your car keys, so bring them along.”

Amelia wondered if she were being chauffeured for her convenience, if it were a necessary part of the game, or it they were just making certain that she didn’t chicken out. And she wondered why Lydia would need her car keys.

Trixie was chatting with the store manager when Lydia escorted Amelia through the Free People clothing boutique. She and the manager appeared to be friends. Amelia’s attention was attracted to the shopping bag that Natasha was holding. She could see black satin where the top of the bag gaped slightly, but had no idea if she were glimpsing a bit of a conservative blouse or whorish lingerie. As this was an erotic adventure, she feared the latter.

Lydia opened the door to a dressing room, let Amelia enter, then followed her in. “Please disrobe.” With no small amount of trepidation, but maybe some small flutter of excitement, Amelia unbuttoned her blouse and slipped it from her shoulders. Natasha entered, carrying the shopping bag, without bothering to knock, overcrowding the small room for a minute until Lydia slipped back out.

As Amelia undid the waistband of her jeans, Natasha spoke. “This is the game. You can think of it as a hunt. Like a treasure hunt. The treasure that you seek is your means to escape, specifically, a trench coat with your keys and a parking stub in the pocket. The location of your car is written on the stub. Get the coat, go to your car, drive home and you’ve won. You will be following a trail of clues that lead to the coat. The treasure that the men seek is you. If they identify you and get you alone in a private location, they’ve won. The problem that the men face is that they do not know who you are or what you look like. They will be given clues about how to find you, but their clues are not simple or explicit. At least, not at the beginning. The problem that you face is that you will be handicapped by the clothing that you will be wearing.” Natasha looked at Amelia, “Please remove your bra, panties, and shoes.”

Amelia slipped her bra straps from her shoulders and twisted it around so that the hooks would be easy to reach. She hate being naked, even inside a dressing room, but feared that she would hate the clothing that Natasha carried in the shopping bag even more.

“You will be wearing a dress that has been designed specifically for this competition. And high heels. You won’t be wearing underwear, of course.” She pulled a pleated black satin dress from the shopping bag and arranged it on a hanger, then hung the hanger on a hook.

As Amelia slipped her panties over her bare feet, she looked at the dress. She could see nothing special about it. It looked like a regular, semi-formal party dress: high empire waist with a wide band; wide, sharply-pressed pleats extending to a hemline that would reach to her knees or maybe a little below; and a demure halter-style bodice. Not backless, no neckline plunging to her waist, no crotch-baring hemline. She had expected that she would be wearing something rather more explicitly erotic like a black corset and obscenely short mini skirt. It was a bit of a relief to see that she would be wearing a rather modest semi-formal dress. Maybe even a little disappointing. Where was the erotic part of this adventure?

“Turn around and hold your arms a few inches away from your side.”

Amelia felt the dress slipping over her arms, then the high waistband being fastened about her ribs just under her bust, and, finally, she felt the halter being adjusted over her breasts. Once Natasha had tugged and adjusted it to her satisfaction, settling it into place, the dress fit perfectly – no surprise because part of her entrance into the club had included providing measurements of every part of her body.

The halter provided no support and she felt a little floppy, but that was all right. She did not have particularly large breasts so she did not need a lot of support. She looked down, but could see no outline of her nipples through the loose folds; nor any darkness from her areoles – the material was completely opaque. Her naked crotch felt like it was air conditioned, the hemline allowing ample air flow and she had no panties snuggled against her moistness. Apart from those details, the dress felt good; easy to wear. Amelia did not yet see how this dress would hinder her in a race against the boys.

She stood still while Natasha walked around and examined her from every angle. “Perfect,” she said, then smiled wickedly. “Put on the shoes.”

Amelia nodded. That would be the trick. The shoes would hobble her in some way. They looked like normal shoes – black patent leather with three-inch spike heels – but maybe there was something painful hidden inside.

She bent to pick them up and got the shock of her life. The dress separated in the back and fell forward past her hips, to hang in ribbons from the bodice. She was completely naked from the bottom of her rib cage to her feet, her ass and cunt completely exposed. And, to top it all off, the halter cups slipped off her chest, so that her tits were hanging, free and uncovered.

She shrieked and stood back up.

The pleated dress fell back into place, looking once more like a modest semi-formal except that her boobs still hanging naked over the high waistband; the two pieces of the halter dangling like the useless black scraps of satin that they were.

Natasha lifted the halter pieces back into place. “That’s the problem, you see. The halter cups aren’t attached to anything. The waistband is held up by the two clear plastic spaghetti straps that fit over your shoulders. If you knock the halter straps off your shoulders, your tits will be left sitting in plain view for all the world to enjoy. You’ve got nice looking tits, but I doubt that you want to flash them to every shopper in the center. And the dress, of course, isn’t pleated at all. I call it an ‘un-pleated non-dress’ because those aren’t really pleats. They’re independent strips of satin hanging from the waistband, shaped and reinforced with bits of plastic in strategic places to fall over your hips just like real pleats. As long as you stand upright, all will be fine. Bend over in any direction and they slide apart to show all. Take too big a step and your legs will shove them aside. Get caught in a breeze and they’ll blow in the wind like pennants. I’d advise you to spend the remainder of the day walking slowly and elegantly with perfect posture because you do not want to be taken away by mall security for being a female flasher. If we have to step in and bail you out with the police or anyone else, that’s an automatic loss and we hand you over directly to the boys. Now, you better put your shoes on because you can’t walk around barefoot.”

When Amelia sat and bent to fasten her shoes, the non-dress fell away from her again, leaving all her vital parts naked once more. When she stood again, the un-pleats fell right back where they belonged. She felt behind to assure herself that her ass was covered again. It was. The non-dress was perfectly engineered. When she manually returned the halter to its proper position, she felt small weights sewn into the ends of the straps that hung down her back. She realized that would have to spend the remainder of the day fighting to keep those weights in their proper position just below her shoulder blades.

“Oh, I almost forgot. I’ll take your watch.” Amelia handed her watch over and Natasha put it in her purse. “The game is timed, but you don’t need to know the time to the nearest minute and there are lots of clocks around. Right now, it’s twelve-twenty and the boys have already been given their first clue: that you are a woman between the age of eighteen and thirty-five, that you are somewhere in the building complex, and that you are wearing clothes that are exceptionally erotic. Knowing these guys, I expect that they are looking for someone who is dressed like a streetwalker or dominatrix. Or more likely, Laura Croft. If you’re careful, you can hide from them easily enough. But if you make a clumsy move and flash a bit of tit or ass when they’re nearby, they’ll be on you like flies on shit. They’re dweebs but they’re not dumb and they know that the best way for them to win the game is to find you as quickly as possible. See, if they figure out who you are, they’ll be able to follow you to one of your clues and then leapfrog you. They can move a hell of a lot faster than you and, if they get to the end of the hunt before you do, you’re toast. Even if they don’t figure out who you are, you have to beat them because, as the day wears on, the clues that they get will become more explicit. If you haven’t made it to your car keys by five o’clock, their last clue will tell them exactly who you are and where to find you. You want to be long gone before they get that clue, believe me.” She gestured to the door. “Let’s get started.”

Amelia was concentrating on the game rules and forgot that she was wearing the non-dress. When she turned and took a step, she flashed herself in the full-length mirror that was mounted on the back of the dressing room door. The pleats parted and her skin beamed white and stark against the shiny black material – a beacon blazing in the night. She caught a clear view of pubic hair where her legs met. She froze, and the pleats returned to position. When she took a much slower, more delicate step, the pleats stayed in place, protecting her modesty. She took a few experimental steps round the dressing room. The satin strips slithered easily across her skin. To keep herself covered, she had to take steps that kept her knees within a couple of inches of each other. At this rate, it would take her a half hour to walk the length of the mall. They weren’t kidding when they said that her dress would handicap her. How could she win a race through a public venue when she was forced to saunter along as though she had not a care on her mind and all the time in the world?

She wanted her jeans and blouse back, but Natasha had already stuffed them into the shopping bag and was not about to return them. Her eyes were glittering with the excitement of the game. Natasha was in the club for the thrill of the competition and Amelia suspected that she had designed the game rules as well as the non-dress.

When Trixie saw Amelia emerge from the dressing room actually wearing Natasha’s dress, she felt immensely relieved. She and Amelia were almost the same size. The game must go on and, if Amelia had chickened out, she was the club’s designated backup player. If Amelia had quit, she would have been called into the dressing room and, right now, she would have been the one mincing ever so carefully through the store, wondering if she were going to be entertaining the geek squad all night long. Somewhere deep inside, she felt a twinge of disappointment. These games were a lot more intense when it was you own ass on the line – literally – and Trixie had joined the group for the rush of the adventures more than for the career advancement benefits. Today Amelia was the star of the show and the rest of them were just the audience. Trixie envied her.

As the women left the store, Lydia handed Amelia an envelope. “This is your first clue. If you hope to win, you won’t waste any more time around here.”

Three of the other women walked away immediately, but Jeanne lingered and, once the others were out of earshot, said in a private tone, “Something you should remember. There’s a Costco-sized bottle of K-Y jelly in the drawer beside the bed. If you lose, you’re going to need every drop of it. The boys spent most of last week compiling a list of things that they want to do to you. They spent most of the week doing research on Internet porn sites. If I were you, I wouldn’t want to have to find out what’s on that list.”

Jeanne was the sadist in the group, always happy to instill a little more terror in the victim. The salt in the wound was that she was the one whose career was being helped because Amelia was playing this game.

After Jeanne slinked away, Amelia opened the envelope and read her first clue. “Barnes and Noble, The Story of O, Page 69. Hope you get there before someone buys it.” She seldom shopped downtown and had no idea where the bookstore might be. She carefully turned a full circle; she could feel the satin pleats slithering against each other, but was certain that they had not parted to show any forbidden flesh. There was no bookstore in sight. Having no better plan, she began walking, slowly and elegantly, with perfect posture, toward the centre of the mall.

She began to realize that, for her, this game was going to be an on-going exercise in self-discipline because she dared not forget herself and flashed her ass. If the hunters did not see her for themselves, someone would surely call mall security and she had no hope of running away.

Floyd, Gerry, and Adam were giddy with excitement. Not all MIT graduates were geeks – far from it – but these three boys were the kind that had given rise to the stereotype in the first place. Between the three of them, they had less sexual experience than the starting quarterback of the average freshman high school football team. But today was their big chance. If they won this game, they would all be men-of-the-world by breakfast tomorrow. And that was what they wanted, more than anything else, more than falling in love or slaking their lust. The next time one of their peers mentioned some common sexual act, they wanted to be able to say, in a casual tone, “Yeah, I’ve done that.” They were sick of going to the pub, trying to pretend that they had more than an academic knowledge about things that the other guys were bragging about, and seeing the contempt in their peers’ eyes.

They discussed their first clue with a tone of near reverence. “A woman wearing exceptionally erotic clothing,” Adam gushed. “What do you think? Lace? Black leather?”

“Maybe a short red dress,” Floyd countered. “Real short. Like short enough to see her underwear. And a tube top, too. You know, real tight with bare shoulders.”

“Black silk stockings with a seam up the back and a garter belt. Or a corset. Corset’s are really erotic.”

“Wait a minute,” Gerry interrupted the other two. “I think we have to take the clue at its face value. It didn’t say erotic clothing, it said exceptionally erotic clothing. What you guys are talking about is pretty standard, not exceptional. I think we have to look for something outside the ordinary.”

“Hey, man. A corset and silk stockings is outside the ordinary. You don’t see that walking around the mall every day. Not with really high heels, too.” Floyd said.

“Especially if it’s a leather corset.” Adam’s eyes were wide with hope.

Gerry did not want to dash his friend’s hopes, but he really wanted to win and that meant making them see reality. “All I’m saying is that, at this point, we have to be careful not to blinker ourselves. If we form too many preconceptions, we’re going to miss something important. If you see a woman who’s dressed like a porn star at a film promo, fine, but don’t just look for that. Look at all the other women, too, and try to see if they are erotic in a more subtle way.”

“You mean like not wearing a bra? It better be something better than that. But don’t worry. We’re not going to miss anything,” Floyd pouted. “The chicks who made up this hunt aren’t like geniuses, you know. When they say erotic clothing, they aren’t thinking cosplay. And if they are, Sailor Moon isn’t going to walk through the mall without one of us noticing.”

“Don’t underestimate Jeanne and her friends. She didn’t get to be a partner at Brigstone Defense at her age by being a dummy. These women play to win. Keep your eyes peeled for something subtle.”

“Yeah. Of course.” Floyd looked offended.

Adam said, “What about the other part of the clue – that she’d be between eighteen and thirty-five? Can we do anything with that?”

“Not much. I think they deliberately gave us a wide range just to keep us guessing. We wouldn’t want to win if the woman was too old and they wouldn’t dare hand a minor over to us because they could get into trouble. Eighteen to thirty-five is the biggest range they could offer and keep us interested. I’m hoping that they’ll narrow down the age range in the next clue,” Gerry said.

“You think she’s a hooker?” Floyd asked.

“I don’t think so. They promised us that the woman wouldn’t be a pro. What did they say? That we would ‘win a night with a willing and enthusiastic amateur.’ We have to believe them.”

“That’s good,” Floyd replied. “I don’t want a hooker. If I’d wanted that, I could have hired one myself and I wouldn’t have to agree to give up a year of my life writing boring code.”

Adam shrugged. “A hooker’d be better than nothing.”

“That wasn’t the deal,” Gerry said. “They have to honor their part of the deal if they expect us to honor our part. They promised us a fair game and a regular woman who would be willing to do anything we wanted, all night long.”

“So, let’s get looking for this mystery woman,” Adam said. “Time’s a wasting.”

“We split up,” Gerry replied. “We can cover more ground that way. Just remember that we’re looking for exceptionally erotic clothing. Not just your average goth teenager in a black miniskirt and tight sweater.”

“What do we do if we think we’ve found her?”

“Follow her. Don’t let her see you, but keep her in sight, no matter what. We have to watch out for each other. If you see one of us following a woman, then close in and help out. If you find her, it could be a couple of hours before the rest of us find you, but that’s all right. The important thing is that we don’t lose her again. If we can pick up the trail of clues that she’s following, then we can figure out where she’s going next and trap her. So, we’re supposed to find the next clue at the Barnes and Noble bookstore in an algebra book at one o’clock. Everyone who’s not tailing the woman, meet there and we’ll plan our next step. If you don’t show, we’ll assume that you’ve found her and we’ll come looking for you.”

“What if I’m tailing the wrong woman?”

“Keep on her until she goes into a ‘private place,’ whatever that is. Better to follow the wrong one for a while than to let the real one get away. You’ll know if it’s the wrong woman if she leaves the mall. The clue said that the woman will be in the mall and that means that she has to stay in the mall.”

“Damn, I wish we had cell phones to keep in touch,” Adam complained.

“Against the rules, man. We gotta play by the rules or they won’t have to pay up when we win. Besides, it wouldn’t be much fun if it was too easy.”

“I don’t care about fun, I just want to win.”

“We all want to win.” Gerry clapped his friends on their shoulders. “So let’s get out there and do it.”

“You think they’ll run into each other in the bookstore?” Jeanne asked Natasha.

“I don’t know. It’ll be close. Amelia got dressed and brought up to speed on the rules of this adventure in less time than I’d scheduled. She’s a quick study but she’s walking slower than I expected.”

“Can she win if she keeps walking that slowly?” Jeanne watched Amelia sauntering down the mall, pretending to window shop as she went.

“I don’t think so. I’m hoping that she’ll learn to walk quicker with practice. She’s going to have to take some chances if she wants to beat the boys to ground.”

Jeanne’s eyes glittered. “I don’t think she has it in her. I think she’ll waste the whole day worrying about flashing a patch of skin and end up entertaining the troops all night long.”

Natasha was no friend of Jeanne. Her stomach clenched as she recalled the last adventure that Jeanne had designed for her. She still relived that camping trip in her nightmares. “She’s got more balls that you think. I’ve given her a good, fair chance.”

“What to add a little spice to the game?”

“What kind of spice?” Natasha felt herself getting set up, but couldn’t stop herself from walking into Jeanne’s snare.

“What do you say to a little side bet?”

“On Amelia?”

“Exactly. I think she’s going to lose, you think she has a good chance of winning. The game will be a lot more interesting if we’ve got something to lose along with her.”

“What do you suggest?”

“We promised the boys two bonuses. A signing bonus now and a completion bonus next year after the clients accept delivery of their software. Let’s say we wager the completion bonus.”

“You mean, you or me?”

“Exactly. Amelia wins today and I’ll serve as the completion bonus next year, competing in a game that you design. Amelia looses today and, next year, I design a game for the boys with you as the prize.”

Natasha thought about that for a minute. “That violates the rules of the club. You’d be engaging in a sexual adventure with your own employees. The whole idea of the club is that we keep out of our professional colleagues’ beds.”

“I’m willing to suspend that rule for one game. Just think of it as giving me a little extra incentive to root for the boys today. I’m going to be their boss for the next year. If they fail to win Amelia, then, I get to spend that year knowing that I’m going to end up being their sex toy. Surely that idea appeals to you. That I would be the target of a year’s worth of sexual frustration from the very geeks who are supposed to look up to me and respect me.”

That idea appealed to Natasha very much. After suffering through Jeanne’s sadistic adventure, she wanted nothing more than a chance to put Jeanne in the hands of three exceptionally horny young men who had spent a year suffering under her micro-supervision. “It’s a bet.”

As she shook Jeanne’s hand, Natasha prayed that Amelia would play well because, if she lost, it would be Natasha who was playing by Jeanne’s rules next year and that would not go well.

However the game turned out today, the boys would be assured of an easy win next year.

Every time Amelia took another slow step, she heard the satin slithering and felt cold air swirling around her moist nether parts. With every step, she was sure that the non-dress had parted like the Red Sea before Moses’ staff. But she kept looking at her reflection in the store windows and saw that her pace was sufficient to keep her modesty intact.

There were fine clothes in the windows by the Fashion Court and she wished that she was wearing them. She would already be at the bookstore if she were able to move normally. She had no money to buy an alternate dress, but she thought briefly about slipping into one of these stores and stealing a coat off the rack. That was tempting but would entail too much risk. She was no shoplifter and these stores had good security. If she were apprehended, she would gain a criminal record as well as losing the game. That would be hard on her career.

All she could do was look longingly at the elegant threads on the manikins and keep moving.

Emerging from the Boyleston Arcade, she saw a mall directory in the Center Court. She felt exposed, walking across the open area at her sedate, elegant pace. Her heart was pounding and her stomach churning with fear as she thought, first about what might be written on page 69 of The Story of O, and then about what might be written on the list of sexual acts that the boys had compiled. No man had ever penetrated her asshole with even as much as a pinkie finger, but Jeanne’s comment about needing a whole bottle of K-Y jelly suggested that she could be in for a lot more than that. Her sphincter puckered reflexively at the thought. With her body and mind both in such turmoil, being forced to move in such an elegant and dignified manner was a separate torture in its own right.

With every step, she worried that the halter cups were slipping and casually raised, first one hand, then the other to check that the straps were still in place over her shoulders. She would suffer the most dramatic exposure if she bent over, but the halter was the part that was most likely to slip if her attention wandered. Everybody’s shoulders slope downward from their neck so it was inevitable that the shoulder straps would slip further with every move she made, no matter how slow and careful she was.

She was relieved when the directory told her that she had been walking in the right direction and was already more than half-way to the bookstore – she need only continue down Winter Garden Arcade to the Barnes and Noble entrance.

She turned her head and upper torso in that direction – a motion that stretched her right shoulder down and pressed her right breast against the inside of the loose halter cup. The strap slipped off and the cup fell away, exposing her entire right tit to the open air. She suppressed a shriek and snatched at the dangling cup, throwing the weighted strap back over her shoulder. But that sudden movement, combined with the stress that her upper body torsion was putting on the pleats made them part from her right knee all the way up to the base of her rib cage on her right side. The pleats fell away to mid-hip, exposing half of her right buttock. She gasped at her gaff and snapped back into her erect posture. As the pleats shifted back into position, they flashed tiny, tantalizing bits of white skin here and there all around.

She froze and stared straight ahead at the directory, waiting to hear screams and feet running toward her, shouts of “Slut!” and “Whore!” and “You’re under arrest!” but all was normal. She heard nothing but the murmur of quiet conversation and footsteps clicking across the tiles, nothing directed toward her or coming in her direction.

Carefully, she turned around. No one was paying the slightest attention. No one had noticed her. Or, at least, if anyone had, they were pretending that they had seen nothing.

No one except one young man standing by himself on the other side of the courtyard. Amelia did not notice him until she began walking again, taking one careful step after another toward the Winter Garden Arcade and the bookstore. Suddenly, she felt his eyes following her every movement with a preternatural avidity. He was fifty feet away, but when she met his gaze, he dropped his eyes and turned away with a blush that was bright and visible from this distance.

God! Was this one of the hunters? Had she been found so early in the game? Had she already lost?

She watched him shuffle away with his eyes on the ground, trying to pretend that he had seen nothing, trying to pretend that their eyes had never locked, even for an instant.

He certainly looked like a geek.

She resumed her progress, her heart sinking. If she had been caught, then it was only a matter of time until this kid would be fucking her in every way that his perverted imagination could conceive. He looked so young. So clumsy. So not the lover of her dreams.

And, somewhere, there would be two more boys just like him.

It was time to get to the bookstore. Adam had spent the last twenty minutes in The Game Stop, sorting through PS3 games, telling himself that he could design better games than any one of these. There was no imagination here at all on the rack, just one first person shooter after another.

If Floyd and Gerry hadn’t been so keen on getting laid, all three of them could be working on a new game design right now instead of having to spend the next year working on some dull defense contract. Some kind of real-time network manager for command and control systems. They wouldn’t even be writing a weapons simulator. It wouldn’t be anything like designing a computer game.

Damn, they better win this game and this chick better put out like they were promised or he was going to forget the whole deal and walk away.

Of course, there was the completion bonus, as well. If the signup bonus was as good a promised, he’d sure like to stick around to collect the completion bonus, too. He had to admit that he’d been just as keen as the other two to get his wick dipped but good.

He knew that he should have spent the last half hour wandering through the mall, looking for the chick instead of hiding in here reading the backs of computer game boxes, but it was still early in the day. They’d be getting better clues later. That was the way this game worked. No sense wearing himself out now.

As he walked through the mall, he inspected every eligible woman’s chest in detail, making sure that he could discern some evidence of a bra before moving past. It could be that the only sexy aspect of their prey’s clothes was that she wasn’t wearing underwear, and he had to make sure that he didn’t miss her.

He was oblivious to the offended looks that he received from the women who were the objects of his inspection. He was a veteran bra inspector and had received such looks every day for years. They meant nothing to him.

So intent was he on his task that he bumped full on into some kid who was walking along in a state of equal distraction. “Hey, watch where you’re going!”

The kid said nothing, just kept staring across the mall at a woman in a black dress who was slowly sauntering in the direction of the South Garden. Floyd looked at her for a few moments, but saw nothing special about her. She was four of five years older than him, pretty, but dressed up like a snooty Saks shopper. Not his kind of chick at all, more like the classy women who had been snubbing him since he was a high school freshman.

“She’s way out of your league, kid,” Floyd snapped and continued on his way, toward the bookstore, by coincidence, walking in the same direction that the kid was looking. As he walked, he keep a watch for the woman that they had been promised, undoubtedly some braless floozy in hot pants.

Halfway across the court, Floyd glanced back and saw the kid still standing in the same place, still staring at the woman in black, who was still slowly walking down the Winter Garden Arcade. “Retard,” he muttered and marched on toward the bookstore.

But somewhere in the back of his mind, he continued to wonder why the kid was so entranced by this particular woman.

As he walked past her, he took a close look, but could see nothing special about her.

He had to meet his friends in the math section of Barnes and Noble.

The Story of O was fiction, so it would be found in the fiction section, but Amelia could not remember who had written it. Some French woman. For a minute, she was afraid that she was going to have to ask one of the clerks to find it for her. The only clerk in sight was a pimply-faced adolescent who was stocking art books in the bargain shelves – not a person with whom she would enjoy a discussion of pornographic literature. She feared that he might be only too familiar with the location of the book she needed. Then she spied the computer terminal that allowed customers to search all the books in the store electronically. Thank-goodness, she would not have to talk to the clerk.

Some minutes later, she was standing in front of the right shelf looking down at the book she needed. Way down. Undoubtedly it was no accident that store’s only copy of The Story of O was stuck on the bottom shelf. She looked at the shelves. There were odd crowdings and empty spacings suggesting that someone had rearranged these two shelves to ensure that that book would be exactly where it was. How could she bend over and get the book without exposing her entire lower body to public view? There was no possible way. She looked around. Shelving blocked her from sight of customers in most of the store, but there were three open prospects, one in each direction along the wall and one between a row of shelves to almost the front of the store. There was an elderly woman, maybe eighty years old, walking slowly down the aisle away from her, but she was not looking around; she seemed to be concentrating on the books. In the other direction, there were a pair of young men browsing aimlessly. One glanced in her direction and she turned her head to avoid catching his eye. The third direction was clear for the moment. There were windows some distance away in that direction, looking out on heavy foot traffic in the mall, but there was nothing to be done about that. Those people were not looking into the store – they had other shopping to do.

She waited for a long minute until the two young men had turned a corner and were out of sight. Then she carefully looked in all directions to ensure that only the elderly woman remained in sight; and that she was looking away. Taking a deep breath, she plunged down and grabbed the book. Predictably, the shreds of the non-dress fell apart, exposing her from the rib cage down, exactly as intended. The halter cups slid off her breasts, leaving her tits, shoulders, and upper back naked.

Book in hand, she bounced erect again and the un-pleats slid back together. Casually, she flipped the halter cups back into position and opened the book. She wanted to whirl around and see if anyone had caught her instant strip tease, but dared not. Not only would a sudden movement re-open the pleats, but her action would signal to anyone watching that something had happened. Even if someone had seen the brief show, if she remained cool, they would probably think that they had been mistaken in what they saw.

That was her hope.

She opened the book to page 69 and saw these words scrawled in the margin: “Get the envelope from behind the book.”

She examined the book. There was no envelope tucked inside. What did that mean? “Behind the book.”

She looked down at the shelf. Was the envelope on the shelf behind where the book had been? Damn. Even bending down to look would require a second exposure of skin and private parts – a longer exposure because it would take a few extra seconds to reach behind the books and search for an envelope.

If she had to keep exposing herself, sooner or later, some prude was going to see her in an indelicate state, call mall security, and have her arrested.

She hated this too-aptly-named non-dress that she was wearing. What was a respectable, thirty-one-year-old professional business woman doing in a situation like this?

Once again, she scanned all three prospects, waited until nobody was looking, then swooped into a low crouch. She dumped a handful of books onto the floor, thrust her hand through the gap and, thankfully, felt manila. She knocked another couple of books off the shelf when she yanked the envelope free and stood back up.

Once again, she had to replace the halter cups to restore her modesty.

After a minute, she looked around carefully. This time, she saw the elderly lady staring at her with disgust.

She turned her back and walked carefully away, opening the envelope as she went. There was a few dollar bills inside and an instruction sheet that told her to buy the book, take it to Saks Fifth Avenue lingerie department and give it to the clerk named, “Mandy.” The instructions also said that she did not need a bag to carry just one book.

Damn. She had dropped the book when she had picked up the envelope. The Story of O was lying among the heap of books that she had left on the floor back up the aisle. She carefully turned and began walking back the way she had come. Back toward the elderly woman who was now walking toward her.

Because she was walking slowly and carefully, the woman reached her before she reached the book. The woman hissed, “You made that mess, young lady. Now you get back there and you clean it up or I’m going to report you to the store manager. You youngsters have no respect for anything any more. You clean that mess up, you hear?”

Amelia was dumbfounded. Had the woman not seen her ninety per cent naked? Or did she care more about neatness than modesty? Whatever, the woman was not going away quietly. “If you have to report me, ma’am, then I suggest you go do it.”

“You…You…You…” The woman sputtered, then found the word, “Pig. You messy pig.” She turned and marched off.

Amelia threw caution to the wind. She had to get out of here before the woman returned with a clerk. There was no one in sight in front of her so she marched the three last steps to the book, heedless of the way the pleats blew aside to leave her pussy bare, swooped down and grabbed the volume of classic pornography, and then stood and replaced her halter cups once again. She was getting well-practiced at flipping the lightly-weighted straps back over her shoulders.

Once she had the book in one hand, the envelope with the money in the other, and the dress arranged modestly again, she strolled in the direction of the cash registers, her gait once again slow and stately, her posture perfect.

When she got to the front of the store, the elderly lady was creating as much commotion as she could, waving her arms about and shouting about “messy young people.”

The store manager was doing his best to manage her, assuring her that a clerk had already been dispatched to clean up the mess and that Barnes and Noble strived to keep their stores as presentable as possible at all times.

Then the woman spied Amelia. “There she is!” She pointed wildly in Amelia’s direction. “That’s the messy woman!”

The manager looked at Amelia, dressed in such a clean, conservative, modest dress, walking slowly and elegantly with perfect posture, shrugged and smiled abashedly.

Amelia smiled back in sympathy and waited for a minute until the next cashier was free.

The elderly woman, finding no resolution to her satisfaction, stormed out of the store, threatening to move back to New York where people were more considerate of each other.

The clerk, by chance, the same pimply adolescent who had been stocking shelves earlier, did not bother asking if she wanted a bag, but, with a blush, stuffed the book away as soon as possible, even before taking her money from her.

She left the few coins change on the counter. Having no purse and needing her hands to maintain the integrity of the pieces of halter about her bosom, she had no easy way to carry them. She also interpreted the instruction that “she did not need a bag” to mean that she was not allowed to have one. She slipped the book out of the bag and left it on the counter as well. That was no big deal – she could easily carry the book with the spine down and the cover held toward her body.

Before she left the counter, she slid the envelope with the instructions inside toward the clerk, “Would you throw that in the trash for me, please?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the boy replied and tossed the envelope into the receptacle under the counter.

Gerry, Adam, and Floyd were unaware of the commotion that was taking place at the other end of the store. They were too busy complaining about the contents of the envelope that they had found tucked into a book on abstract algebra.

“What kind of clue is this?” Adam whined. “It says that the lady likes to read. That’s it? She likes to read? What the hell does that mean? Lots of women like to read. Are we supposed to go looking for a woman who’s reading something? A woman who’s sitting around in sexy clothes reading a book.”

“Or maybe it means a woman who wears glasses,” Gerry said. “Maybe they just mean that we should look for women wearing glasses.”

“That’d be sexy all right,” Adam sniffed.

“I’d make passes at women who wear glasses,” Floyd snickered, having no idea that he was referencing Dorothy Parker. These men had as little experience with literature as they had with sex.

“You make passes at everyone, all the time,” Adam replied. “It’s completing the pass that’s the problem.”

“Yeah, well, if you get busy, we’ll will find a woman who’ll complete all our passes tonight,” Gerry snapped, “And if you just want to stand here sniggering, then we’ll be spending the rest of the year with our dicks in our own hands, wishing we’d tried a little harder today. Let’s get to it.”

“But we don’t know what we are looking for.”

“We’re looking for a woman in sexy clothes who likes to read. Just look for anyone who might fit that description.”

“Yeah,” Adam replied doubtfully, “and what about the rest of it. Who’s going to get the next clue?”

The three young men looked at each other uncertainly. Finally, Gerry said, “Okay, if you guys are too wimpy, I’ll take care of it.”

“You’re the man,” Adam grinned in relief.

“Yeah,” Floyd agreed. “We’ll wait for you outside Saks.”

“Damn right, you will. I don’t need you guys inside giggling and raising a fuss while I’m looking through lady’s lingerie.”

“That’d be a sight to see, though,” Adam grinned.

“I see you anywhere in sight, and you’ll be the one looking for the clue. Got it?”

“Yessir.” The two others snickered in chorus.

“Grow up.”

Lydia sat on a bench in the South Garden and watched through the windows, her eyes following Amelia out of the store. “She’s got lots of time to get to Saks and ditch the book.”

Trixie nodded. “As long as she doesn’t get spotted with it, first. I still think this clue is coming too early in the game. It must be obvious to the hunters that they are looking for someone carrying a book and Amelia’s got to be the only woman in the whole mall who’s doing that. Anyone else would have their book in their purse or in a bag.”

“They have to have a fair chance.”

“But not a sure thing. They can move so much faster than her and there are three of them.”

“Maybe. But Natasha made the rules and she usually has a good idea about what’s fair.”

Trixie nodded again. “Amelia doesn’t know how glad she should be that we didn’t let Jeanne make up the game this time like she wanted to.”

Lydia nodded. “Jeanne does like to see us suffer, doesn’t she?”

“She sure made Natasha suffer on that camping trip. You know what I think about keeping her in the club.”

Lydia nodded. “I know. But I don’t think she’d go too far. She pushes us to the limit, but not over. Not yet.”

“I think she put Natasha over the limit.”

“I would have thought so, too, but Natasha didn’t. She voted to keep Jeanne in the club. She knew that we would have excluded Jeanne if she had said the word.”

“That surprised me,” Trixie admitted.

Lydia frowned. “Maybe Jeanne has a sharper perception about what we can handle than you or I do. I think that if it had been you instead of Natasha going on that camping trip, Jeanne would have made the game a lot easier. I don’t think she’d try to put you through as much as Natasha.”

“I’m glad that you have confidence in her.” Trixie’s voice was dry with irony.

“Not that much confidence. If Jeanne ever designs a game for you to play, Natasha and I’ll go over the rules and consequences with a fine-toothed comb first. I promise you that.”

“I trust you and Natasha.”

“Thanks,” Lydia smiled.

“But I still think this game favors the boys over Amelia. And these aren’t the kind of boys who know or care what things are going to feel like for her. She’s going to get slammed all night long tonight. I pity that poor girl.”

Lydia thought that maybe Trixie secretly envied Amelia “getting slammed all night long” but said nothing. She just smiled a little smile inside.

The mall was getting busy and Amelia had a new concern. People passed close to her as they rushed about. If they brushed against her, they were going to brush the un-pleats aside and give everyone a flash of her flesh, no matter how carefully she was walking. Yet, to get to Saks from Barnes and Noble, she had to cross the busiest part of the mall, where people were rushing from the Copley Hotel at one end to the Hayne’s Conference Center at the other.

She clutched the book and prayed that no one would bump into her.

But someone did. Not brush against her, and not knock her over, but rather a middle-aged fat man in a Hawaiian shirt and a big hurry bumped into the hand that was carrying the book.

The Story of O flew out of her grasp and skidded across the floor.

The fat man must have known what he had done, but he neither paused not apologized; he just waddled away as fast as his stout legs could carry him.

Amelia walked over to the book, hoping that no one else would get to it first, but, when she got there, she could do no more than stop and stare down at it. She could not bend over to pick it up without making herself naked. And this was not the back of a quiet bookstore; dozens of people would see her most intimate parts no matter how quickly she squatted, bent, or swooped.

For long moments, she stared down at the book, not knowing what to do. Then a hand reached down, picked it up, and handed it to her. “Is this yours?”

She was staring to the handsome face of a thirty-something man in a business suit. “Yes, it is. Thank-you so much.”

He looked at the cover. “Interesting book.” Then looked full into her eyes. “One of my favorites.”

“I’ve never read it.” She blushed at the lie. She had read it, but a long time ago.

He handed her a business card. “My name’s Jim. Jim Weaver. When you do read it, give me a call. I’d like to take you out for coffee and let you tell me what you think about it.”

“Thanks.” She took a step back.

As he was walking away, he turned back and said, “It’s all right if you don’t like the book, you know. I’d still like to hear from you.”

“Thanks,” she said again and turned away slowly. Not from reluctance, but to ensure that her pleats did not part.

She had no pockets and did not want to drop the card on the floor – some wild old lady was likely to make a fuss if she littered – so she slip the card into the book like a book mark.

Adam would not have noticed that the woman was carrying a book at all, so casually was it nestled in her hand, had she not dropped it. He was puzzled when she stood over it for so long, rather than picking it back up right away. He might have been the gentleman who retrieved it for her, had not the other man been so much closer. If not for all of the “would haves” and “might have beens,” the confluence of chance would have worked out quite differently.

But had served to put the slightest whiff of the prey’s scent in Adam’s nose, metaphorically speaking, and that was sufficient to bring him to look a little more closely at the woman.

Closing ground was trivial, the woman moved so slowly and elegantly. This was hardly the hot, sensual chase that he had imagined. And she was hardly wearing the ‘especially erotic’ clothes that he had been promised. But the woman was the right age, as were half the women in the shopping center; and she was carrying a book, as were none of the other women that he had seen.

It seemed a slim chance that this was the woman of their fantasies, but it was the first real possibility of the day, and that was enough to draw him in for a closer look.

When she shifted the book to her left hand in order to adjust the shoulder strap on her dress, he could see the title clearly. Holy shit! The woman was carrying the fabled, Story of O, around in public.

The odds that this was the woman they were seeking increased exponentially in Adam’s mind.

He backed off and looked at her surreptitiously from a distance.

Woman of his fantasies? No. This was not a woman that he would fantasize about. This woman was so much more than he dared have hoped for. Forget some goth trash weighted heavy with piercings and makeup and torn nylons. Or some pneumatic bimbo with silicone tits and collagen lips. This was a real woman who lived in the real world. A woman with substance to her life.

Adam wished so hard that he could have this woman, even just to hold and kiss, that it hurt like a physical pain in his heart. And hurt in his groin because they had been promised so much more than hugs and kisses from the mystery woman.

As careful as a panther in the jungle, he began stalking the woman as she slowly, casually made her way through the mall, into Saks and, holy mother of god, right into the lingerie department! That was where Gerry would be coming for their next clue.

But it was only one-thirty. The other guys wouldn’t be here for another half hour.

Adam stood back and waited to see what would happen.

When the sales clerk asked if she could help, Amelia told her that she was looking for Mandy.

“Wait here. I’ll go get her.”

A minute later, a more senior clerk, Mandy, was nodding and taking the book from her.

Amelia had no idea what to expect, but Mandy knew what she should be doing. “I’ll let you into the dressing room,” she said and lead Amelia to the back of the store. Mandy walked briskly, Amelia did not. Mandy looked annoyed that she had to wait after unlocking one of the dressing room doors. When Amelia finally got close enough, Mandy said, “In here,” and walked away.

Amelia did not know what to expect. Exotic underwear, maybe, because this was the lingerie department. But even the most exotic underwear would have been better than complete nudity under the non-dress. Or maybe she would be given another dress to replace the one that she was wearing – a dress that would be even worse to wear in public. But Amelia could not imagine any dress that could be worse and still legal. And Natasha wouldn’t put her out in public in anything overtly obscene, would she? That would make her lose the game immediately. She had been promised a fair chance, but Amelia began to wonder how much she could trust women that she hardly knew.

She entered the dressing room alone and shut the door behind her.

There was no clothing inside. Clearly she was expected to continue wearing the non-dress. Rather, she found something worse than she could possibly have guessed. There was a small tube of K-Y jelly and a realistically-colored, anatomically-detailed, double-ended dildo with a post-it stuck to it. It was about the same diameter as a real penis, but a full foot long.

What in hell was she supposed to do with that? She looked at the little tube of lubricant, then back at the rubber dick and felt ill. She didn’t want even to touch the thing, much less do anything that required lubrication.

She certainly had no intention of masturbating herself in a Saks Fifth Avenue Lingerie Department. What would be the point of that?

Instructions were written on the post-it in tiny, but clear, printing. “Take the dildo to Booth 417 in the Haynes Convention Center. Drink the Coke. By the way, nobody in Saks will help you. Don’t ask.”

That’s all? Just carry the dildo into the convention center at the other end of the mall? She looked around the dressing room, but there were no bags, papers, or anything that she could use to wrap the thing. Carrying it in her hands would be humiliating, but not actually illegal – they could not arrest her for it.

Then she realized that she did not have to be doing something illegal to lose the game. All she had to do to lose was attract a lot of attention because her goal was to hide from the hunters. If she carried a big, rubber, naked, double penis into the mall, she would attract a crowd and her pursuers would be onto her within minutes.

She looked again at the tube of lube. There was only one way she could move the dildo the length of the mall without attracting attention.

She picked up the dildo and examined it. To her surprise, she saw that there was a hole in both ends. Looking down one of the holes, she saw that an eighth inch tube ran the entire length of the dildo. Why would anyone make a dildo with a tube through the middle?

With a sigh, she opened the K-Y and began lubricating one end of the plastic cock.

At least she didn’t have to worry about moving any panties out of the way when she spread her legs and began working the fake phallus into her cunt. She had used plenty of lube so it slid up with no resistance whatsoever. It felt cold initially, but was already warming noticeably as she pulled her legs together again. The lower half stuck out of her, feeling thick and strange between her thighs. When she moved her legs into a natural position – she did not want to walk around looking bow legged – the pressure on the bottom half of the dildo moved the top half deep inside her, stimulating her cunt in a strange, perversely sexual way.

Walking the length of the mall like this was going to be a special treat of its own.

She did not want to walk around with lube glistening on her hands and she didn’t have any paper towels, or even a Kleenex, so she stuck a leg out from the pleats and wiped her palms against her thigh as best she could. Better the spare lube dry out of sight on her thigh. At least, it would be drying out of sight if she kept walking carefully. She knew that, should any K-Y seep through her dress, it would dry clean without leaving a stain.

She adjusted the halter cups, then walked two slow steps across the dressing room, watching herself in the full length mirror. She looked all right; the dildo did not show beneath the pleated dress in any way. But the sensation of it pushing and pulling inside her with every step was most disconcerting. It was going to be even harder to remember to keep the halter cups in position with this further distraction.

Time was wasting. This was a race, after all, and she had to get all the way to the Haynes Center and find Booth 417. It was almost two and she was going to be handed over to three horny men on a silver platter if she could not complete her labors by five.

She opened the door and stepped out into public. She walked a dozen steps through the lingerie department and felt the dildo slipping a little with each step. It felt like it was about to fall out of her before she made it to past the bra racks. If it slipped all the way out, she’d be in serious trouble – there was no way that she could pick it up off the floor without providing a free strip tease show for every person in sight. A big part of the problem was the hole through the length of it. No suction. Maybe she’d used too much lube.

Contracting her cunt muscles with all her might, trying to get a grip on the slippery devil, she began inching back toward the dressing room door. She was sweating with effort, and failing. Finally, in utter desperation, she reached down, quick as a snake, between her legs and pushed the hateful thing manually back inside herself until it was pressed as far into her cunt as it would go.

Of course, the halter cups fell away again, but she scooped them back into place and shuffled back to the dressing room without even glancing around to see who might have seen her tits.

Back inside, she wanted to cry in humiliation and frustration. How in hell was she going to make it all the way to the conference center like this?

After a minute, she calmed down and tried reasoning her way out of her situation. The problem was that the dildo was too slippery. At least, the end that she’d lubed was too slippery. She pulled it out of herself then reversed it and pushed the dry end as far into herself as it would go. Her cunt was still plenty well-lubed, so it went in easily enough, but it felt at least a touch more secure.

She convinced herself that it was stuck a little better this time, readjusted her dress, and, once again, emerged from the safety of the dressing room.

She half expected to find a crowd waiting to see the second act of Amelia’s fabulous involuntary improv sex show, but no one seemed to be paying the slightest attention. Maybe a couple of the clerks had seen more than they wanted because they seemed to be determined to keep their heads turned away from her.

With the slick dildo hanging out of her, squicking against her inner thighs with every step, constantly threatening to slip out, she’d be walking more carefully than she could ever have imagined. It was going to take an eternity to weave through the crowds of Saturday afternoon shoppers and get to the other end of the shopping center.

She had a successful academic and professional life because she was a disciplined person, but she was learning more about self discipline in this one day than she’d learned in the first thirty years of her life.

Adam continued to pretend to be shopping for a pair of earrings as he kept an eye on the dressing room door across the store. He saw the woman come out, walk a few steps, turn around, grab at herself, and then go back inside. What was that all about? He was too far away and her back had been turned, so he had no idea what she had been doing. Did she have new underwear? Did it need further adjustment? Images of purple thongs and red garter belts danced in his head.

He continued to pretend to look at white gold hoops as she emerged again and he tracked the woman’s slow progress toward the exit.

Gerry was supposed to be coming here any minute now to get the next clue, but Adam couldn’t wait for him or Floyd; he had to stay with the woman. That was the plan. He dared not let her get too far ahead because she might dash out of sight at any moment. Just because she was strolling along ever so slowly right now did not mean that she would keep it up. She might break into a dead run at any second and ditch him.

He knew about being ditched by lovely women.

He followed the woman out of Saks through the Fashion Court door just as Floyd and Gerry were entering from the Back Bay Arcade door.

Gerry entered the lingerie department alone. Like all suicide missions, this was a solo venture. He put on his bravest face and kept his pace steady as he marched deep into enemy territory, looking neither to the right nor to the left, but making a beeline directly for the rack of rainbow hued bras hanging in front of the dressing room doors.

Halfway through the department, a pretty young thing with a fake brass nameplate reading, “Mandy,” asked if she could help him find something, but he replied, “No thanks. Just looking.” and motored onward without making eye contact.

He’d rather be programming.

The clue from the algebra book said only that he would find something among the bras at Saks that didn’t belong and he should take it away.

He assumed that the clue meant that he would find something that was not a bra – a jock strap? crotchless pantyhose? a stuffed monkey – but he had to also consider that it might be a bra that did not belong among the other bras – a training bra in a display of full-figured cups, for example. The latter possibility worried him because he had little experience with bras and might not recognize that a sports bra did not belong in a display of push-up bras. If that were the test, he might well fail.

He spent minutes walking around and around the rack, sorting through all the bras: green ones, red ones, black ones, lace ones, cotton ones, pushup bras, half cups, wide straps, invisible straps, no straps. There was more variety than he had ever imagined. A woman would have to be a rocket scientist just to choose a bra.

“Are you sure I can’t help you find something?” Mandy asked again.

“No…Wait. Are these all your bras?”

“No, of course not. This is just a sample. We carry a full range of sizes and styles in the drawers against the far wall. Come. I’ll show you.” She led him to the back of the department and pulled open a drawer. “Is there anything in here that interests you?”

He looked in the drawer and saw a copy of The Story of O lying on top of the piles of bras. “What this?” he picked up the book.

“I don’t know. That shouldn’t be in there at all. It’s just junk, I guess. You can have it if you want it.”

“Thanks.”

Gerry charged back out of no-man’s-land to safe territory without another word.

Adam was still MIA, so he and Floyd looked at the book together in the mall just outside Saks. “That’s it?”

“This is it,” Gerry said.

“So what’s it mean?”

“It means that the woman likes to read hot books.”

“What are we supposed to do with it?”

“Give it to her? Read it ourselves? How should I know?”

“Well, we better figure it out. This is the only clue we’ve got. So far, I don’t think this is much of a game. We’re half way through and all we know is that we’re looking for a woman in sexy clothes who likes to read. That’s not helpful. I think we’re being screwed.”

“We won’t get screwed until we find the woman who’ll screw us. Let’s figure this out.” Gerry waved the book at Floyd. “There’s got to be something in here for us.”

There was a business card for a man named Jim Weaver.

“Who the hell is he?” Floyd asked.

“How the hell should I know?” Gerry replied. “Let’s find a pay phone and call the number on the card.”

They spent ten minutes finding a phone and placing the call. There was no answer, but Gerry left a message on the machine, “I’m Gerry. I found your card in The Story of O, and I’m looking for a clue. Can you help me? I’ll call back soon.”

When he hung up, Floyd asked, “What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything. I just got a machine.”

“That’s no fair. We need a clue now. What are we supposed to do?”

“We’ll wait a few minutes, then call back and see if we get an answer.”

The two young men watched women streaming through the mall. Floyd got bored, took the book from Gerry, opened it and leafed through to the first page. May as well be entertained. But there was a post-it note stuck to Page 1 that said, “Page 58. Page 107. Page 148. Page 198.”

“Shit, there’s clues in the book,” he told Gerry, then opened the book to page 58 and saw that a passage had been highlighted in bright yellow, “…they will know that beneath your skirt you are constantly naked, however comely or commonplace your clothes may be, and that this nakedness is for them.”

“Hot damn,” Floyd chortled. “Her nakedness is for us. Hot damn! This is more like it!”

“So that’s what’s so sexy. She’s not wearing anything under her dress.” Gerry thought for a minute. “This passage implies that her clothes may look ordinary on the outside. The eroticism is inside. That makes a certain amount of sense. We are supposed to have to hunt for her. But how will we know if a woman is wearing underwear if she’s wearing a regular skirt. We can’t go peering up women’s dresses.”

“So what’s on the other pages?”

Gerry opened the book to page 107 and saw more highlighted words, “…her black pleated skirt…” then page 148, “…she was to dress entirely in black (entirely was underlined)…” then page 198, “…her black dress that spread like a corolla around her.”

“That’s pretty clear. She’s wearing a black dress.”

“And no underwear.” Adam smirked.

“And no underwear,” Gerry confirmed. “But it’s not the underwear that will identify her, it’s the dress. We can’t see the underwear, but we can see the dress.”

“That’s not much help. Anyone could be wearing a black dress.”

“You think?” Gerry raised an eyebrow at his less-than-observant friend. “How many women do you see shopping in black dresses without even a scarf or belt in a different color?”

“What makes you think that she’s not wearing a colored belt?”

“Page 148 said that she was dressed entirely in black and that the word entirely was underlined. If she’s wearing even a speck of color, then that clue would be a lie.”

“Well some goth chick, then. There’s lots of goth chicks that wear black.”

“Not pleated dresses. Page 107 said a pleated skirt. You think you’re going to find a goth chick wearing a black pleated dress.”

“I don’t know pleats from shit.”

“Just look for some woman wearing a black party dress. That’ll be her.”

“I’m ready to party. Let’s go looking for a lady in black.”

Gerry shoved the book into his hip pocket and the two men charged into the crowd.

Jeanne laughed happily. “They’re looking for the black dress now. Amelia doesn’t have a hope in hell. She’d have to be almost finished to have any chance at all. Instead, she’s only half way through and she’s moving slower than a gimped snail.” She looked at Natasha and said, “Hope you like nerdy cock, dear, because a year from now, you’re going to be getting a hell of a lot of it stuffed into you. A hell of a lot.”

Natasha’s heart felt heavy. “She hasn’t lost yet,” was her only reply to Jeanne’s taunt, but her protest sounded hollow in her own ears. She could see no way for Amelia to win now. All the boys had to do was walk up and down each arcade and they couldn’t help but see Amelia hobbling along, one baby step at a time.

The Law of Unintended Consequences applies as much to the design of game rules as to any other human endeavor; but applies especially strongly to the Wicked Women’s Adventure Club games because the rules are loosely specified and there is no opportunity to pre-test them.

Because the dildo was hanging so far out of Amelia, it rubbed against her legs with every step, making her feel like it was thrusting inside her. That kept her constantly stimulated and she kept producing copious amounts of natural lubrication. And, to try to keep the dildo from slipping out, she kept squeezing it with the muscles in her vulva, which increased the stimulation and the resulting natural lubrication.

She dared not allow it to fall out and she could not push it further in when she was in the mall, so her only choice was to duck into every store front that she passed, walk behind the nearest shelf or counter to give her a few seconds of privacy, reach down and shove it as far back up into herself as she could. Which, of course, also stimulated her and kept her natural lubrication flowing faster than ever.

Every time she did this, she looked around to see if anyone was looking at her. It was only natural that she would notice the same young man slowly walking past the front of every store that she entered, looking at her through the door or window.

A nerdy young man. Following her. She didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that she had a problem. The rules of the game were unclear about this event. She was the object of their treasure hunt – and Natasha had been clear that she had lost the game if she was caught – but no one had explained what caught meant. It could not mean merely being seen, because everybody saw everybody in the mall. It could not even mean being identified because there was no mechanism for them to confirm their identification. They couldn’t grab her in public and drag her away because she’d scream for the police and bystanders would intervene. The ‘hunt’ would seem to mean finding her, tracking her, and stalking her until they got her alone.

Maybe they had found her, but she could still foil the ‘stalking’ part of the hunt.

She didn’t have to give this man the use of her pussy yet. Her sopping wet pussy that was filled to capacity with a double-ended dildo from hell.

There was nothing that she could do here, but now that she had recognized one of her stalkers, she was certain that she would figure out a way to shake him off her tail when she had to.

The walk past the front of the front of the Prudential Tower was the worst part so far. There was a long stretch with the tower on one side and the South Garden on the other – no stores that she could slip into for an adjustment. All she could do was walk carefully and hope to hell that she didn’t lose her grip on the slick silicone inside her.

She did not lose it completely, but she knew that it had slipped more than half way down.

When she finally entered the lobby of the Hynes Convention Center, she had a new reason for dismay. To get to the exhibition hall, she would have to ride a circular escalator up to the next floor.

There was no way she could step onto an escalator without losing her load; she was almost losing it just standing here.

And the lobby was filled with people rushing hither and yon. A large banner announced that this was the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association.

At least, if she claimed insanity, there would be no shortage of experts who could testify on her behalf.

Then she saw a gift from heaven. A sign for the lady’s room. On this level. She minced around the lobby, found the door, and slipped inside. Once safe in a stall, she plucked the dildo from between her legs, grabbed a handful of toilet paper and wiped it dry. Then she wiped the excess from between her legs and prepared to re-insert the object. It should be dry enough to stay in place, now.

Wait a minute! What was she thinking? She had to be smarter than this to win the game. She didn’t have to walk all over the place with a dildo stuffed up her cunt just because Natasha and her buddies expected it. The rule said that she had to take it to Booth 417. They didn’t specify that it had to be stuck inside her when she got there. Maybe she had had no alternative when she was stuck in Saks’ lingerie department, but she had options here at this end of the mall.

She boldly carried the dildo out of the stall – not that boldly, she could hear that there were no other people in the restroom at the moment – whipped a handful of paper towels out of the dispenser, and began wrapping.

It didn’t look elegant. To her eye, it looked exactly like a dildo wrapped in paper towels, but to someone else, someone with no expectations, it might not. And even if someone suspected, they would not know for sure. That was sufficient.

She berated herself for not being more imaginative. She could have used the same trick in the Saks washroom and saved herself more than a half an hour of slippery, desperate, mincing hell.

She had to start playing this game a lot smarter if she wanted to win. She only hoped that it was not too late for her to get smart.

She began marching toward the door, then felt the breeze on her pussy. Damn. She had to remember that she was still wearing the un-pleated non-dress. She was hardly free of constraints. Walking more sedately, she walked back out into the fray.

As soon as she emerged from the restroom, she saw the familiar young man leaning against the wall further down the corridor. Her pet nerd was still dogging her tail. She gave no indication that she had seen him, but proceeded directly to the escalator

Getting on the escalator was tricky. Even taking a short, quick step, she knew that she had flashed some thigh at least. Hopefully none of the stream of men ascending behind her saw any more of her behind. Thankfully, the halter cups stayed in place, though both straps slid precariously close to her shoulders from the bounce. As she rode up, she casually pushed the straps back into place.

Getting off the escalator was worse. The upper lobby was more crowded and she had to step off into a group of men who were milling around in confusion, wondering which way to go. The pleats were pushed aside and she felt her bare hip brush against a Japanese gentleman. Then she had to grab quick for her shoulder strap, but she knew that the halter cup had gaped forward, showing the Japanese man’s friend rather more of her nipple than would be considered polite by Miss Manners.

She avoided his wide eyes and stepped elegantly through the crowd toward the conference hall, trying to hold the paper-towel-wrapped dildo as inconspicuously as possible.

Uniformed guards were examining badges at the doors to the Exhibit Hall.

She could hardly rush through the door. As she sauntered past the guard, a large black woman, she was challenged. “You, where’s your badge, ma’am?”

She looked down, then at the woman. “Oops. I left it in my purse. It’s in our booth. Four seventeen. Psychometric Testing International. I’ll have to go get it.”

“What’s that in your hand?” The guard gestured toward the dildo wrapped in brown paper towel.

“Uh…” Amelia looked down at the object in her hand and blushed. “It’s a psychological test. Like an ink blot. You’re supposed to tell me what it looks like.”

“You don’t want to know what it looks like to me, honey,” the woman said, proving that she was more perceptive than Amelia would have hoped. Psychologists were piling up behind Amelia, waiting impatiently to see the exhibits. “Okay,” the woman finally conceded. “But you get your badge and wear it. You’re not allowed in here without it.”

Amelia needed no further encouragement. “Yes, ma’am.” She hurried inside as fast as her careful, stately pace would allow.

Adam watched Amelia disappear into the exhibit hall. As soon as she was out of sight, he joined the crowd that was streaming in after her. But he was not invisible. As soon as he was funneled close to the guard, she stepped in front of him. “No badge, no entry, sonny.”

He gestured into the hall. “But you let that woman in.”

“She works here. You don’t. Show me a badge or move out of the way.”

Adam looked at the woman’s implacable face, then turned and pushed his way back toward the lobby.

“Hey, you aren’t going to give up that easily, are you?”

He looked up to see Gerry and Floyd standing in his way. “We can’t get in without badges.”

“Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges.” Floyd thought he was quoting Bogart from The Treasure of Sierra Madre, not realizing that the exact words that he was delivering came straight from Blazing Saddles.

“Yeah? Well tell that to the guard,” Adam replied.

“You don’t tell that to the guard,” Gerry answered. “You social engineer the guard.” He waved his hand in a Jedi mind trick gesture and said, smoothly, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for… It’s all right... The boy can go.”

“Okay, Master Yoda. Let’s see you work your magic.”

“You have a piece of paper on you? Something official looking?”

Adam shrugged. “I got my Charlie Card for the subway.”

“Nah. She’s going to know what that looks like. I need something more official than that.”

Floyd pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. “I got my final transcript.”

“What?” Adam gaped. “You carry your transcript around with you?”

“My mother hasn’t seen it yet.”

Gerry grabbed it, “It’ll do,” and walked away.

“Wait, I’ll need that back. My mother hasn’t seen it yet.”

“Forget your mother. Will your grades impress the woman in the black dress? That’s the only question that matters. What did you get in Advanced Algorithms? I bet the woman in black would give you a blow job if you got an A.”

“Fuck off,” Floyd pushed his friend, lightly but not quite as good naturedly as he pretended. “First, we’ve gotta get inside.”

Gerry walked passed a group of psychologists and flashed the transcript at the security guard, “MIT Tech support. We’ve got a server melt down in our booth. It’s a mess. Adam gave me a pass,” and kept walking.

The guard glanced at the paper, did not recognize it but saw that it looked official, and called out, “Hey, wait a minute,” at Gerry’s back, but he kept walking. She shrugged, said, to the nearest psychologist, “Tech support guys are all assholes. Pardon my French. They know damned well that they’re supposed to use the service entrance.” Then she went back to checking badges.

Outside, Floyd was amazed and thrilled by his friend’s balls. “Will you look at that. He made it past the guard with my transcript.”

“Yeah. So what do we do now?”

“Wait here, I guess. Make sure the chick doesn’t get past us.”

“Okay. I know what she looks like,” Adam said. “I’ve been following her.”

“Yeah. We know. We’ve been following you. The last clue was the black dress. It was easy to spot her once we knew that.”

“How’d you know that?”

“The last clue was in the book that Gerry found in the lingerie department at Saks.”

“The book? You mean The Story of O?”

“Yeah. How’d you know it was The Story of O?”

“I watched her carry the book into the lingerie department at Saks and leave it there.”

The two men were silent for a minute, then Floyd said, “Wow. You mean they made her carry the clue there herself so that we could get it? They made her carry the actual book that’s going to get her ass fucked?”

“I guess they did.”

“That’s cold.” Floyd whistled to himself. “Man, that’s cold.”

Amelia shuffled through the massive exhibit hall, under the glare of a hundred high intensity lights set into the concrete ceiling far above, feeling like she was the main exhibit. Her feet were beginning to ache seriously. She had now been walking in high heels for almost three hours. Though she normally wore heels, she also normally spent the bulk of her day sitting at a desk or in a meeting room. These shoes were not meant for walking.

There were no numbers on the exhibit booths – just the exhibitors’ names. She did not have time to wander around – the hounds were on her tail – so she approached a man in a suit who was staffing a booth that was exhibiting equipment for poking electrodes into rat brains – there was an actual live rat with a plug sticking out of its head sitting in a cage – and asked where she would find booth number four seventeen. The man was not busy – apparently not that many psychologists wanted to stick electrodes in rat brains – so he was happy to help. He pulled a booklet from behind a curtain that covered a table and opened it to a floor plan of the exhibit hall. “Here you are,” he said, pointing to one edge of the map. “It’s over there,” and gestured to the far wall of the hall. “Empire State Scientific Publishing is exhibiting in booth four seventeen. Whoever they are.”

“Thanks.” She shuffled off in search of Empire State Scientific Publishing.

There were a lot of people milling around, but the hall was big enough, and the aisles wide enough, that she had no trouble keeping a good personal distance between herself and the convention attendees. As long as she walked erect and slowly, her modesty was not at risk.

The problem was the slowly part. She had managed to crash the gate. Though she had not seen her pursuer since, she did not doubt that he would get inside soon enough. Him or his friends. She wished that she knew what the friends looked like. They would look like geeky young men, she was sure, but the hall was full of geeky-looking young men.

The Empire State Scientific Publishing booth was not one of the big draws. There was a single, forlorn woman sitting in front of a display of books about technical writing for the social sciences. None of the attendees seemed terribly interested in technical writing for the social sciences and filed past without giving the display a second glance.

Now that she was here, Amelia wondered what she was supposed to do. The clue had said something about “drinking the Coke,” whatever that meant. Then, she saw a large, opaque glass sitting on the table at the back of the booth.

The woman staffing the booth saw her glance, smiled at her, and gestured back to the glass. It seemed that she was in on the game as well. Amelia wondered how much she knew. Was she aware that Amelia was naked under her dress and that her body was the prize in a treasure hunt; or if she was only told that a thirsty woman in a black dress would stop by sometime.

It mattered to Amelia whether some strange woman knew about her predicament, but she could not have explained why.

When she reached the back of the booth, she moved the paper-towel-wrapped dildo to her left hand, adjusted her halter cups, and then tried to pick the glass up from the table.

It did not budge. She pulled harder and it still did not budge. The glass had been fastened to the table and the table was weighted down with a hundred pounds of books.

She could not bend over to put her lips to the glass without exposing her naked ass to everyone walking past. Empire State Scientific Publishing would instantly become the most popular booth in the exhibit hall. And even if she were willing to do that, she still had no way to suck the liquid out of the glass. She would need a straw and she did not have one.

Wait! She had seen a straw not so long ago. She looked at the paper towels in her hand. There was a straw stuffed down the middle of the dildo. Carefully, she opened one end, exposing the hole with the straw in it, being careful not to show enough of the head of the fake cock to draw attention. Yup. That was a straw, all right. She tried to get a grip on it with her fingernails to pull it out of the dildo, but it would not budge. It had been clued tightly inside and there was no way to remove it from the dildo without access to serious tools.

She was going to have to use the entire dildo as a giant straw. And it was a double-ended dildo. It did not matter which end was up, she was going to be sucking fake cock in public. While she was bent over with her naked ass on display.

She would be arrested instantly. Not to mention more humiliated than she had ever been in her entire life.

Maybe she could get the woman in the booth to do it for her. Yeah, right. Just ask a strange woman to suck a glass of coke through a fake erect penis because it would be too humiliating for Amelia to do it herself. A fake penis that had just spent more than half an hour shoved up Amelia’s hot slippery cunt. That was sure going to fly.

Amelia shuffled around to the back of the table. At least, she did not have to wave her naked ass in the public’s face. She unwrapped the dildo and laid it on the table between her and the glass. Then she reviewed what would happen, just to make sure that she could accomplish her task as quickly and smoothly as possible. Maybe she could be so discrete that no one would notice.

She was going to slip the dildo into the drink, cover the dildo with her hands so that no one could see what it was, bend over and… Wait! Bend over and feel the halter cups flop onto the table, leaving her tits naked as Eve’s. Nope. Grab her halter, bend over and… And let the whole world see her sucking cock like a shameless whore.

She could not bring herself to do that, either.

Natasha had put her in an impossible position.

She told herself to play smarter. There had to be a solution.

And, as soon as she told herself that she had to be smarter, she realized what the solution was.

The table was piled high with books. In a minute, with a little artful arrangement, she had piled books a foot high around the glass. Success! Now, when the dildo was in the glass, no one could see it.

She grabbed her halter cups, crouched down, and started sucking silicone cock –cock that tasted like her own sex but spurted a long stream of flat Coca Cola. Her lips were stretched and her mouth felt full, but the level of the liquid was falling in the glass.

Her legs and ass were naked to above her waist, but there was a curtain behind her, and books piled on a curtain-shrouded table in front of her, blocking the most pornographic angles from public view. People could see her naked hips from the side and she could see men staring as the walked past, but her only option was to drink as quickly as she could.

She sucked hard.

As the level of dark liquid fell, words written on the inside of the glass were revealed. Success. A minute later, when she stood up and let the dress fall back into place, she had her next task. “Booth 89 or Booth 777 – pick one. You’re from WWAC.”

A small crowd of a dozen men had gathered in the booth – she had not been as discrete as she had hoped. As she pushed through them, a grizzled, professorish-looking cad said, softly, “How much for a party?”

“Fuck off,” she whispered at him.

“I’ll give you a hundred bucks for an hour,” he said a little more loudly.

She ignored him and kept walking slowly out of the booth. She would have liked to ask the woman where Booth 89 was, but she had to get away from the drooling gang of male psychologists first. She had drawn too much attention to herself here. The hounds would be running her to ground if she couldn’t fade into the background right away.

She wondered if any of the men in this little group were her pursuers. Several of them looked nerdy enough.

As she strolled through the hall, some of the men began following her. As she walked further, doing nothing interesting, looking like just another elegant woman in an elegant dress, they began to fall off, one by one.

She selected a booth that had no visitors at the moment – it happened to be promoting the psychology program at a private religious college in Oklahoma – and asked the attendant where she would find Booth Seventy-seven. He said that he did not know. She asked if he had a booklet with a map of the exhibition floor. He did. Booth Seventy-seven was in the north-west corner of the hall. Of course if would be as far away from here as possible. Psychometric Software Inc occupied the booth.

She spent ten minutes strolling through the exhibit hall, had to wait another five minutes for the woman staffing the booth to finish a sales pitch to a pair of badly-dressed, middle-aged women who clearly had no intention of buying anything, then said that she was from the WWAC.

“Yes, of course. I have an envelope for you.” The woman pulled a manila envelope from under a curtain-shrouded table – all the exhibitors seemed to keep piles of stuff hidden under their tables – and handed it to her.

She carried the envelope out of the booth to be alone before opening it; who knew what embarrassing thing this might contain. Inside, she found a plastic card with the words, “Marriot Boston Copley Place Hotel” on the front and a magnetic stripe on the back. It was a hotel room key. Hopefully a coat with her car keys would be found in that room. But which room? There must be over a thousand rooms in the hotel. A piece of paper in the envelope did not give a room number as she hoped. It said, “Levenger.” That was it. Just one word that meant nothing to her. Was it a name? A code? Was it a foreign word? French or Spanish maybe. Or Latin. What in hell was “Levenger?”

She could go back to the bookstore and start looking in dictionaries. That would waste some serious time. It was already well after three thirty. Less than ninety minutes and the geeks would be given their final clue, the one that Natasha had said would put her directly into their hands. Her pussy still felt slippery from its adventure with the dildo straw. She remembered what Jeanne had said about needing a whole bottle of lube if she lost the game. She remembered the geeky-looking man who had been following her a half hour ago and thought about all the places that he might want to put his cock. Her asshole twitched reflexively.

Smart. She had to be smart if she were going to save her ass. She thought hard.

Before she went anywhere else, she had to eliminate the convention center as the location of “Levenger.” She went into a booth and asked the exhibitor if she could borrow a program for a minute. The exhibitor said that he did not have one, but one of the visitors to the booth offered to let her look at his program. She thanked him sincerely and looked up “Levenger” in the index. It was not the name of an exhibitor, not the name of a speaker, nor the name of any author of any of the papers in the conference. Just to be sure, she asked the man if the name meant anything to him. He said that he had never heard the word before. And he said that he spoke four languages.

She thanked him, returned his program, and, defeated, shuffled out of the booth.

As she suspected, Gerry had been one of the men watching her empty the cola glass. Unlike the other men in the group, he knew exactly what he was seeing – a woman wearing an exceptionally erotic black dress and nothing else. Damn. He never guessed that he was looking for a woman wearing break-away clothing. That was way hotter than any micro-miniskirt or tight sweater. When she walked out of the booth, her small crowd of admirers flocking after her, Gerry reached into his pants pocket and adjusted his erection, hoping to make it as inconspicuous as possible. Then he walked away from the woman, toward the back of the booth. She had not been putting on that display for the fun of it. She’d been doing something back there that was important enough that she was willing to let her dress fall away from her body in public.

The dildo was still in the glass and the sight of it made Gerry even harder than he had been. She’d been back here, sucking on a dildo. He felt weak in his knees thinking that it wouldn’t be long until she would be sucking on a real dick instead. His dick.

He was so distracted that it took him a minute to start thinking about the game again. So why had she been drinking through a dildo in public? The answer was in the glass. Booth 89 or 777. WWAC. Neither meant anything to him. Unlike Amelia, he did not know that exhibit booths had numbers. He had found this one by following her. And no one had told him that there was such an organization as the “Wicked Women’s Adventure Club.” That was not the kind of thing that members were likely to tell outsiders.

But both problems were solvable for one of MIT’s brightest lights. He asked the woman exhibitor, “Are these booths numbered?”

She informed him that he was currently standing in Booth 417. Where were Booths 89 and 777? Her map showed him that they were at opposite corners of the hall.

The word ‘or’ means a lot more to a computer scientist than to most people. It is a logical operator that means one or the other but not both. Which one should he go to? The one that the woman would be most likely to go to or the other one? His first instinct was to follow the woman, but logic told him that the other option might be better. If he went to the booth that the woman did not go to, he might gain information that she did not have, and, in turn, he might gain some advantage over her with that information. She would probably take the booth nearest the exit, so he should go to the other one, the one most distant from anything else.

He thought about her break-away dress and knew that she would not be moving faster than a slow stroll in public. He would have plenty of time to get to the distant booth and still catch up with her before she left the hall.

Most of his logic was correct. He did go to a different booth than her and, like her, soon found himself in possession of a hotel key card and the mysterious word, “Levantage.”

He was also correct that he could move a lot faster than her. But he was wrong about finding her again. He had assumed, incorrectly, that he would intercept her on the way back to the entrance door, not realizing that she had gone to a booth that was near a side door. There was a third entrance to the exhibit hall, in addition to the two that he and his friends had already seen.

He wasted a considerable amount of time checking around the exhibits, looking either for the woman or for anything called, “Levantage,” because he did not want to leave until he was certain that he had done as much as he needed to do. He was not certain that he could bluff his way back inside again once he had left.

Another half hour had passed by the time he rejoined Adam outside the hall.

“Where’s Floyd?”

“I don’t know. He said that he was going to look for a washroom a long time ago and he never came back. Maybe he got tired and buggered off. You were gone a hell of a long time. I was about to go looking for the girl myself. You know that we missed the three o’clock clue and we’re about to miss the four o’clock one, too.”

“That doesn’t matter. We don’t even know where the three o’clock clue was supposed to be. We found the girl instead.”

“So where is she?”

“I don’t know. I lost her. I’ve been looking all over for her in there, but she disappeared.”

Adam looked angry. “So we don’t know where our own clues are. We don’t know where she is. We don’t even know where Floyd is. We’re fucked. Totally fucked.”

“Not totally. We’ve got her hotel room key!” Gerry flashed the key card triumphantly.

“Hot damn. We won!”

“Not quite,” Gerry confessed. “We know she’s in the Copley Place Hotel, but we don’t know the room number.”

“We can go over there and try all the rooms. It’s got to open one of the doors.”

“That’s the worst idea of the day. It’s all computerized. They see the same key being tried in one door after another all the way through the hotel, they’ll arrest us for burglary. We’ll end up fighting felony charges for the next six months instead of screwing our brains out for the next six hours. We have to find out the room number.”

“How do we do that?”

“There was a paper in the envelope that said, ‘Lavantage.’ We figure out what that means and we’ll find out the room number. I’m sure of that.”

“Lavantage mean anything to you?”

“Not a thing.”

“Me neither.” Both men thought for a minute, then Adam said, “Substitution cipher?”

“Too many letters. A hotel room number would only be three or four digits.”

“Some kind of hash code?”

“We don’t know the hash function.”

“Checksum on the ASCII values?”

“I doubt it. Too technical for the woman to solve.”

“If she’s solving the same clue.”

“She must be. She could have gone to my booth just as easily as her own.”

“How about sum of the ordinal positions of each letter in the alphabet. That’s not so technical. Anyone could do that.”

Gerry looked doubtful. “I don’t know about that.”

“Well, I like it.”

“Do it if you want.”

Adam said, “Add up these numbers. Twelve, four, twenty-two, one, fourteen, twenty, eight, seven, four.” He barely paused between the numbers.

“You know the ordinal position of every letter in the alphabet off the top of your head?”

“Doesn’t everyone? There’s only twenty six letters. What’s the total?”

“Ninety two.”

“Great! She’s in room ninety-two.”

“No, she’s not. There won’t be any room ninety-two. It’s a major hotel. The room number has to be at least three digits. The first digit is the floor number and the last two are the room numbers.”

“Well aren’t you the sophisticated hotel expert.”

Gerry rolled his eyes. “It’s not rocket science. Everyone who stays in a hotel figures that much out. That’s how they know which elevator button to push. Duh!”

“So we’re screwed.”

“No. We just have to figure out what Levantage means.”

“It’s probably a brand of pantyhose that every woman in the world knows about and we’ll never guess in a million years. I’ve got a better idea. Let’s go back to finding our own clues.”

Gerry pulled the book out of his hip pocket. “This was our last clue and it didn’t say anything except what color dress she was wearing. It didn’t tell us where the rest of the clues are.”

“It’s got to be in there somewhere.”

“Then you look for it. I’m going to look for something called Levantage and maybe I’ll find the woman out there in the mall somewhere.”

Gerry walked away, leaving Adam to read The Story of O by himself. He hoped that his friend would get off on it because, without a lucky break, they’d all be whacking themselves off tonight. Just like every other night of their lives.

He felt so frustrated he wanted to scream.

Amelia knew that she’d picked up another tail. After leaving the exhibit hall through the side door, she’d found an elevator and took it down to the street level. Less risk of a revealing slip in an elevator than on an escalator; she should have thought of that earlier. She knew that she had no tail there because she’d ridden alone. But now, wandering through the mall, she noticed another geeky young man window shopping behind her. The sole advantage of wearing the un-pleated non-dress was that she had to move so slowly that anyone who was moving at the same speed was conspicuous. This guy was no gumshoe. He stayed the same constant distance behind her, kept looking in her direction, pretended to be interested in the most inappropriate store windows – Ann Taylor? Really? Basically, he stood out like a sore thumb.

But she was not overly worried. Now that she had seen him, she would find a way to ditch him sometime before getting to her hotel room.

Now she had seen two out of three of the hunters. If she could identify the last one, then she would be closer to free than she had been all day.

She wanted the game to be over. She wanted to sit down for ten minutes without having her dress fall apart. Even to be able to walk a dozen steps without having to reach up and place the halter straps more squarely over her shoulders would be a relief.

She was fast reaching the point of despair; she was beginning to think that spending a night lying on her back being fucked by three guys, one after another, might not be as bad as this. Maybe the easiest thing to do would be to go up to the guy who was following her and surrender. Offer herself to him and his friends and ask them to treat her gently.

She was walking slowly down the Back Bay Arcade, toward the pedestrian bridge that led to the hotel, only because she had not been here yet. She was hoping to see something, some clue near the hotel that would tell her what “Levantage” meant – maybe the key itself was part of the clue. Maybe she was supposed to find the answer in the hotel lobby – when she saw another mall directory. Having no other plan, she stopped and looked at the list of stores.

Duh! How oblivious could a woman be? There it was! Levantage was the name of a store in the mall! According to the directory, it was a small store that sold pens and writing supplies and it was located right next to Barnes and Nobel. She had walked right past it earlier! Twice!

Maybe she deserved to lose this game. Maybe she had more talent in her ass than brains in her head.

She walked back down the arcade as fast as she dared, knocking the pleats aside as far as mid-thigh. After almost four hours in this dress, she was learning just how far she could push it without showing more skin than was decent. Or at least not enough skin to be considered obscene.

She almost laughed as she blew past the geek who was trying to look inconspicuous by staring in the window of yet another woman’s shoe boutique. She’d have no trouble ditching him when the time was ripe.

He stayed in the mall, still trying to look inconspicuous, when she went inside and began looking for her hotel room number. First, she asked the clerk if he had any messages for anyone from WWAC. He looked confused. “Who are you?”

“My name is Amelia. I’m from the WWAC. I thought you might have been given an envelope for me.”

“I don’t even know what that is.”

“An envelope?”

“No, the W thing.”

“It’s nothing important. So you don’t have any envelopes for me?”

“Nope. Just the ones for sale.” He pointed to a rack filled with packets of envelopes and writing paper. She looked around. Half the store consisted of racks filled with envelopes and writing paper. It was going to take a long time to search for a plain manila envelope among all this paper.

Then she noticed the writing pad on the counter. It was a small note pad that was provided for customers to try out pens; the idea being that, if they needed to write on something, they should have something other than the expensive custom stationary that was for sale. The top sheet was covered with scribbles and doodles. And one number: 1116. She tore the sheet from the pad. Just to be certain, she looked around the store for a minute. No sense being too hasty when she was this close to the prize. Sure enough, she found three similar pads on three displays. Every one of them had “1116” written on the top sheet.

She tore off each sheet and carried them out of the store with her. There was no reason to leave her room number for anyone else to find.

The geek tailed her back through the mall, down the Back Bay Arcade and up to the overpass.

She wondered if her modesty were being compromised as she walked through the glass tunnel over Huntington Avenue. Her naked pussy felt exposed to the cars passing underneath her despite the modest length of the hem that swirled about her knees.

So what? If someone saw a flash of pussy, that was no skin off her back. As long as no one on the road below had an automobile accident, more power to them.

The geek actually had the nerve to follow her onto the hotel elevator, along with three other men and two women, all wearing APA conference badges.

She pushed the button for the eleventh floor. The geek pressed nothing.

When the elevator stopped on Eleven, there were still two men and two women inside, along with the geek. Before she stepped off the elevator, she said, loudly, to the two men, “This guy has been bothering me. I don’t know him. Please don’t let him follow me to my room.”

The two men looked at her, then, as one, stepped between the geek and the open elevator door. The larger man said, “I think you should ride up with us a little longer, buddy.”

As the doors closed, Amelia saw the geek’s mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. And, like a fish, no sound was coming out.

She strolled down the corridor, feeling lightness in her heart for the first time since she had agreed to play the game a week ago. She had won. The corridor was empty in both directions as far as she could see. She did not even have to walk slowly. She increased her pace and let the satin ribbons flap about her naked lower torso however they might.

When she slid the key card into the lock, the red light turned green and clicked open.

When she stepped through the door, she saw a black trench coat laid out on the bed, pretty as you please. Blessed relief. She would slip it on, walk back down to the parking arcade as free and easy as any other shopper, find the keys in the pocket as promised, and drive home to spend the night in her own sweet bed. Alone.

But when she picked up the coat, there was no jingle of keys coming from the pocket. The jingle came from the bathroom.

“Looking for these, love?” A young man, one she did not recognize, stepped through the bathroom door, holding her key ring aloft. “I don’t think that you’ll be needing these or that coat until tomorrow morning. In fact, you won’t be needing that dress, either. Why don’t you just slip it off? I’m sure that you’re tired of wearing it by now.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Why don’t you let my friend in?”

She opened the hotel room door and a second boy, the one who had been following her from Saks to the convention center stepped inside. “Hi. I’m Adam. Gerry has already introduced himself, I guess. We’re your new boyfriends for the night. Have you seen Floyd around?”

She nodded. “He took a ride up to a higher floor. I’m sure he’ll come back down to this one as soon as he can.”

“So,” Gerry said, “we got here first. That means we won. Are you willing to hold up your part of the deal?”

“Willing? You expect me to be willing?”

“Of course. We’re not going to rape you,” Gerry said.

Adam looked slightly disappointed, but nodded in agreement.

“The deal was that you would be willing. Actually, willing and enthusiastic, but, now that we’re actually here, we’ll settle for willing. Though if you could pretend at least a little enthusiasm, we’d sure appreciate it.”

Adam nodded eagerly. He took a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket, unfolded it, and held it out to her. He said, shyly, “We have a list.”

The story about the list was true. She took the paper and looked at it.

Gerry said, quickly, “It’s just suggestions. You don’t have to do it all if you don’t want to. It’s just some things that we’d like to try. If you’re willing, that is.”

The list surprised her. Item number one: they wanted to kiss her. Item two: feel her breasts. Three: kiss her breasts. At least one of these boys had never even kissed a woman before.

When she got to the bottom of the list, she thought about Jeanne’s promise that there would be a big bottle of K-Y in the drawer by the bed. There was nothing on this list that she could legitimately object to, but she was hardly going to be enthusiastic about the last two items. But maybe the boys would be too worn out to get that far. Maybe if they found the first two thirds of the list enough fun, that would be enough for them. She would do her best to wear them out with the standard stuff.

Amelia looked from one boy to the other. After all this, they were kind of sweet. In a geeky sort of way. “Look, I’ve never done anything like this before. I mean, I’ve had sex. I was even married for a few years. But I’ve never done anything very… very different. And I’ve never been with more than one man at a time. So this is pretty new to me. If you want to go slow, I’m willing to see how far we get. In fact, I could even be enthusiastic about a lot of these things.” She smiled shyly. “I am pretty good at kissing, you know. And I don’t just mean lips.”

Adam blushed as red as she had ever seen anyone blush.

Gerry said, “Oh, about more than one guy at a time thing you said. That’s not on the list. I don’t think we’re interested in that.” He looked at Adam and they both blushed anew. “Not at all. There’ll only be one of us in the room at a time.”

Adam nodded vigorously. These boys had no interest in seeing each other naked.

“Okay, then. I only have one request. Years from now, when you talk about this – and you will – be kind.”

Adam laughed. “You’re going to give us more than tea and sympathy?”

Amelia smiled in surprise. “Right.”

“I don’t get it.” Gerry said.

Adam explained, “She just quoted the last line in the play, Tea and Sympathy.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed that you like plays,” Amelia commented.

Adam shrugged. “We don’t spend our whole lives in front of computer screens.”

Amelia smiled. “Adam, why don’t you see if you can find Floyd and fill him in on what’s happening? Gerry can hang my coat in the closet and then I’ll show him a few things about kissing that he may not know.” Adam left and Amelia took Gerry by the hand and pulled him close. As she suspected, he knew nothing about kissing. But he was a real quick study.

To her amazement, one of the boys did manage to make it to the end of the list before morning dawned. Less surprising, when they returned her coat and keys escorted her back to her car the next morning, all three boys said that they were happier than they had ever been before.

Amelia managed to maintain an unexpected degree of enthusiasm, even to the end, proving herself to be truly a suitable member of the Wicked Women’s Adventure Club.

Unbeknownst to Amelia, the other members of the club had assembling in the adjoining room as she began to serve her penalty for losing. It was their duty to stay close and provide as much protection for each other as possible. Many things would be beyond their control, but if they heard something obvious – screams, breaking furniture, cries for help – they would intervene without hesitation.

As they began their vigil, Natasha told the others, “We have a problem.”

“What?” Lydia asked with some concern.

“This was not a fair game, as promised. Jeanne and I made a side bet. I bet that Amelia would win, Jeanne that she would lose. Outside the exhibit hall, when it looked like Amelia would win, Jeanne intervened. The two boys outside the hall had no idea where to go. One was milling around the conference meeting rooms and the other was starting to read The Story of O from the beginning. Jeanne said that she had to go to the rest room so I told her that I would go check on Levantage to make sure that the room numbers were still written on all the pads. I did not. I waited at the other end of the corridor and watched the boys. It never occurred to the boy with the book to look at the end page where we had provided the pointer to the third clue, but he didn’t have to. Jeanne came back within a couple of minutes and spoke to him. I think she told him the room number, short-circuiting the Levantage detour because he dashed off immediately. I followed him to see what was up. He caught up with the other boy outside the conference meeting area and both boys made a beeline for the hotel. They were in the room before Amelia had a chance even to get to Levantage.”

Jeanne turned on Natasha. “You tricked me.”

“I was ensuring the integrity of the game. You were cheating, both on our bet and on the game as a whole.”

“All’s fair in love and war.”

“No, it’s not. This game has rules and you cheated. The question is what do we do now?”

Lydia looked at Trixie. “Go next door and tell Amelia that she is off the hook.”

Trixie shook her head. “There’s no upside to that. She thinks that she lost the game fairly. It would only hurt her to think that she had been betrayed.”

“Then tomorrow, we tell the boys that they are off the hook. They don’t have to work for Jeanne next year.”

“Why should they benefit? They benefited first from Jeanne’s cheating. They are benefiting now from Amelia’s payoff to them. And now you want to give them their freedom on top of all that? That’s not fair to anyone. They got a good deal already. Why should the get an even better one?”

“Exactly what did you tell them,” Lydia asked Jeanne sharply.

“I told the boy that the final clue was one one one six. That’s all.”

“So, as near as the boys knew, they were still playing within the rules of the game.”

“Yes.”

Lydia shook her head. “This is a mess. There’s nothing to be done about it now. The game is played. Let it finish. All in favor?”

The “ayes” were unanimous.

“There is another issue before us. I move that Jeanne be expelled from the club,” Lydia said, “on the grounds of unfair play.”

“Wait,” Jeanne said. “Wait. You can’t expel me.”

“Yes, we can,” Natasha replied.

“Wait. Don’t vote yet,” Jeanne begged. “At least let me make my case.”

Lydia looked at Trixie and Natasha. The other two women nodded.

“I got carried away. I didn’t mean to do it. Besides, the boys would have won anyway. The Levantage clue wasn’t very hard. One of them would have stumbled across the answer before Amelia because she was moving so slowly. Natasha’s assumption from the start was that if the boys found her before the cola clue and began following her, then they’d easily leap frog her and get to the room first. And they’d found her way earlier. No one expected that the Levantage clue would stymie all of them. Not when they’d already walked past the store twice going in and out of Barnes and Nobel. And the third boy was hot on her tail anyway. He was following her right up to her room.”

“Where she ditched him as easy as could be. You didn’t believe for a minute that the boys were going to win because, if you had thought so, you wouldn’t have cheated.”

“So, let’s vote,” Lydia said.

“Wait,” Jeanne said, desperately. “Wait. You’re right. I cheated and I shouldn’t have done it. Instead of expelling me, let me make restitution. I’ll do whatever you say.”

The other three women looked at each other. Natasha spoke up. “First of all, you lost the bet.”

“Okay. I lost the bet.”

“What were the stakes,” Trixie asked.

“The loser serves as the completion prize next year at the end of the contract. And the winner designs the game. What did you tell me? That I was going to be sucking a hell of a lot of geek cock next year? Well, it’s not going to be me on my knees, my dear Jeanne.”

Jeanne looked a little ill. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

Natasha twisted the knife hard. “That boy, Adam, couldn’t stop reading The Story of O. I think I have a theme for next year’s game that the boys are really going to like. These boys are going to learn about a whole new level of perversion. And so are you.”

“Okay, I said I’d do whatever,” Jeanne tried to mask her fear with annoyance. “So that’s it.”

“Not quite,” Lydia replied. “That covers your bet but doesn’t solve the problem of cheating Amelia out of a fair win. There has to be a completely different consequence for that breach of trust.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to plan something.” Lydia looked at the other members. “And Amelia has to be involved in the planning, too. She is the most aggrieved party. For now, let’s just ask you to keep Labor Day weekend free. Three days in Hell sounds about right. I’m not sure what you’ll find in Hell, but I can guarantee that you won’t like it. Agreed, girls?”

The ‘ayes’ were unanimous once again.