[A direct sequel to ‘Dress Off: Sasha vs. Tara’, as we learn more about the new career of Stacey Shackleton.]
The black Volvo had now been parked outside the main administration building of the community college for a solid hour and a half, the steady rain outside seeming to go from vertical to horizontal as the wind worked its way along the spectrum from playful zephyr to pre-cursor for a gale. Inside the waiting car, a man and a woman were also speeding along their own spectrum. They’d briskly departed anticipation station shortly after arriving outside the college, and were now a mere five minutes away from their final destination of complete and total frustration. The woman in the passenger seat - a beautiful brunette whose strikingly blue eyes were hidden behind an entirely unnecessary and wildly optimistic pair of sunglasses - flicked a bit of paper back across to the man in the driver’s seat. The man glanced down at it, thought for a moment, spun a pen in his hand, and made a mark before passing it back, returning his gaze back to the entrance to the college for any sign of their unsuspecting target.
For the past twenty minutes, the woman had been trying to convince the man of the folly of hanging around. Several spirited arguments had been made about the merits of returning to base, and the needlessness of loitering around when the afternoon sun had clearly given up doing likewise and was now hiding behind several layers of black cloud. The man had rebuffed all such arguments with appeals to the importance of the “mission”, along with pointed reminders of the responsibility handed to them by their employers. The woman had long since begun to suspect that the man’s dedication to the mission was also in no small part due to the fact that he’d be staying in the car when - or indeed even if - their target showed up, while she’d be the one having to get out in the rain.
The woman looked down at the paper handed to her, and realised that the latest in an interminable sequence of noughts-and-crosses games had once again reached a stalemate. As she summoned the last vestiges of her willpower to try and convince her companion of the futility of this exercise, the man nudged her and pointed out the windscreen. The main entrance doors to the college slid open.
From the relative warmth of the administration building, an agitated yet statuesque redheaded woman, around twenty-seven years of age, paused momentarily as she re-arranged the green raincoat that covered but in no way hid the curves of her clearly well-maintained body. There were, the woman in the car mentally noted, an awful lot of gym visits required to allow you to look that good even when the weather was this bad. Either that, or some breathtakingly unfair genetics at play. The redheaded lady pulled the green raincoat hood over her hair now, looked up critically at the black afternoon clouds, and managed to exceed the temperament of the wild weather around her by storming off towards the car park.
The man leaned over, smiled encouragingly at his companion, and theatrically gestured towards her door.
“Perhaps you’d be a gentleman and hop out and open it for me.” the female companion suggested, with a slight edge to the request. The man’s smile only widened, and in a mock show of regret he declined the kind offer to show off his gentlemanly side. The woman raised an eyebrow in response, but nonetheless removed the superfluous sunglasses and made sure her own coat was zipped up tight as she turned to open the door. The wind and rain suddenly buffeted into the interior of the previously warm car, and the man hurried her out, unceremoniously slamming the door shut as the woman began to hurry across the street to intercept Miss Green-coat, who was already halfway to her own car.
The man reached for his phone, tapped a button the interface, and waited for someone at the other end to pick up.
“Agent Mitchelson here,” the man said, as a voice at the other end acknowledged the call. He saw his companion `accidentally’ bump into their target, share a surprised and necessarily brief conversation, and then hurry to shelter with their red-headed quarry under the doorway of a neighbouring building.
“Agent Shackleton has made contact with the target.”
**********
“Stacey, it’s just not fair. That stupid bitch gets all the breaks and I’m sick of it.”
Stacey took another sip of her coffee as Erica launched into the now familiar rant about her arch-nemesis and sole fountain of all that was wrong with life: one Miss Kimberly Reed. Stacey had known Erica Matthews for almost exactly one month now, having enrolled in the same community college classes as both Erica and Kimberly at the beginning of the term, and in those short four weeks Stacey had heard a dozen takes on the same tale of woe, from both sides.
As Erica settled into the routine for one more encore performance, Stacey tried hard to focus on what she was saying and not on the general awfulness of the college cafe coffee that was currently her single source of warmth. Erica had, as expected, been more than happy to coincidentally run into her new friend outside the administration building, and had been quick to suggest a catch-up and de-brief on the latest atrocity against justice that Erica has just suffered. Stacey already had a fair idea of what had happened, it being the reason she’d been bored out of her mind in a car in the middle of a storm for an hour and a half. Still, it wouldn’t pay to let on that she knew, so Stacey put her acting skills to good use and leant forward in concern.
“Erica, I know things seem a little rough right now, but I’m sure there’s some way we can sort this out.”
“Oh, Stacey, you don’t know Kimberly like I do. I mean, she’s only got half the qualifications I do for that library job, and yet somehow she’s managed to get promoted ahead of me! It’s blatantly unfair, and I wouldn’t put it past the slut to have slept with the head librarian.”
Stacey involuntarily lost her focus on the conversation for a moment, as she tried to suppress a mental image of the twenty-six year old Kimberly Reed sleeping with the seventy-plus-year-old head librarian. She was half-way to suggesting that this seemed unlikely - though not, Stacey corrected herself, entirely implausible - when she realised that overly defending Kimberly’s character wouldn’t exactly play to the mission objectives.
“Well, you know how it is, Erica. Kimberly isn’t one to mess around when she wants something, and she’s a risk taker. Sometimes when you’re a risk taker you win big.”
Both Erica and Kimberly had worked in the community college library for over two years now, while also taking their anthropology courses together. Close proximity in both study and work had made their early attempts at friendship fall foul of the old saying that `familiarity breeds contempt’. They’d begun to compete, as so many before them, for grades, for men, and for status in their jobs. Erica and Kimberly were, Stacey noted to herself, extraordinarily beautiful women, gifted with natural sporting prowess and a reasonably sharp intellect. In fact, if they weren’t so easily distracted by this and past feuds, then both had glittering and highly successful careers ahead of them.
A senior position in the community college’s not-overly-impressive library had opened up only a fortnight ago, and of course Erica and Kimberly had both jumped at the chance. The job came with a pay raise, but that was almost inconsequential compared to the fact that the job meant that the successful applicant would effectively be the boss of the unlucky also-ran. Stacey wondered if it occurred to either woman that they could of course just change jobs, and that both had the qualifications - both mental and undeniably physical - to walk into any decent administration job, especially if men were on the hiring committee. Of course, Stacey thought, to be fair it wouldn’t have occurred to her if - no, be honest now, when - she’d been in a situation not-dissimilar to Erica’s.
The final decision had been made thirty minutes ago, and Erica had been in the same room as a beaming Kimberly when the victor was informed of her promotion. Stacey hadn’t known who was going to win the position, although she knew someone would be coming out of those doors upset and in need of a friend with a helpful suggestion. The fact that it was Erica did make Stacey’s life slightly easier, Kimberly would be the easier sell on the idea even though she was already winning life’s little contest. A victorious Erica would have been harder to convince.
“I take risks too, Stacey; it’s not like I’m just sitting back and letting Kimberly walk all over me. It’s just that the bitch is on a winning streak at the moment.”
Stacey looked across at Erica’s emerald-green eyes and saw hopelessness begin to well up in them, a hopelessness that seemed completely at odds with everything Erica had in her favour. Stacey reflected on that for a moment, and saw a lot of her old life in Erica. Unbidden, she felt genuine empathy for both Erica and Kimberly at the moment. Still, on to business.
“You know, Erica, it’s at times like these when the chips are down that sometimes you’ve just got to roll the die and hope for a hard six.”
“Yeah, well, right now I’m open to suggestions because I’m all out of ideas. I’ll be damned if I’m going to work under her, and I’ll be damned if I give her the satisfaction of quitting.”
“Right, right. So, seems like we’re at an impasse,” Stacey continued, smoothly, “perhaps what you guys need is a little outside help. Some professional assistance that can figure out a way to settle this. It’s not healthy for either of you, after all.”
“What, you mean counselling? I have to sit down in a room with her, and what... talk about our feelings?” Erica couldn’t hide the incredulousness in her voice as she sank back into her chair, her lithe body managing to incidentally turn a defeated slouch into something approximating a sexy pose.
“Sort of..., sort of...,” Stacey went on slowly, “although counselling is perhaps a little too protracted for what I was thinking of. You know, back before I met you both, I was in a certain situation that I needed help in, and someone put me in touch with a group that helped resolve that.”
Stacey managed to suppress the shudder as the thoughts of exactly how that had been resolved flooded back to the forefront of her mind. It had been eight months now though, and Stacey was a new person - so to speak. Time to move on, time to step up. She continued.
“So, there was this group; they had a couple of suggestions, and things resolved themselves, making me the woman I am today!” the irony of that statement was suitably lost on Erica, who had stopped sniffling in self-pity for a moment while her interest was piqued. “And I think they can help you too Erica. Both of you, because, you know, I’m a friend and friends help out friends.” At this point, Stacey pulled a card out of her wallet and handed it to Erica with a supportive smile.
Erica hesitantly leaned forward, took the card and looked at the uncomplicated plain white business card that simply advertised a name and an email address.
`Decider Enterprises’
***********
Agent Stacey Shackleton, promising future star and latest recruit at Decider Enterprises, stood in the corridor on the fifth floor of the Majestic Hotel, trying to not scratch the deeply irritating blonde wig that currently sat on top of her own luscious brown locks. The floral red dress that she wore wouldn’t exactly pass muster in a roll call of “costumes to wear when trying to blend into the background”; that said, Agent Stacey Shackleton was the kind of woman who could have been wearing state-of-the-art military urban camouflage gear and still stood out like a beacon to any man in a one-kilometer radius. She’d maintained her interest in sports after her enforced relocation, and her frequent gym visits had made the exercise bikes a popular destination for male gym-goers when she was ass-up in the front row pounding the virtual roads.
Right now, though, she wasn’t looking to hide from men, and women were at least less likely to look at her face and recognise her in this current ensemble. One of her targets, Miss Kimberly Reed, had just disappeared into room 5F, and Stacey afforded herself a moment’s relaxation as she signalled over the phone that both Miss Reed and Miss Matthews were now safely at the designated rendezvous point. She re-adjusted the earpiece in her left ear, and heard Agent Mitchelson confirm that he was ready too.
This was it, the culmination of months of effort. Ever since a scout for the organisation had first reported back that there was a promising feud going on in the local community college, Stacey and Mitchelson had been laying the groundwork for this day. Stacey had befriended both Erica and Kimberly, getting to know them and juggling the tricky assignment of being a confidant to both while not being seen to be an enemy of either. She’d been right that Erica would be the tougher of the two nuts to convince about the merits of what was about to happen, and it was fortuitous that the job had fallen to Kimberly, so as to give Erica the extra push she needed. Stacey idly wondered if Mitchelson had pulled some strings on that one, as she’d be damned if she could think of anything else he might have contributed so far. Typical of the man to allow her to do ninety percent of the work, knowing he’d get at least fifty percent of the credit.
Kimberly had been even easier to convince than Stacey had dared to think. She’d had the slight concern that Kimberly would be too satisfied with her latest victory to risk anything too final against Erica. However, it quickly appeared that her total dislike of the green-eyed, red-headed beauty was more than sufficient for her to consider riding her luck one more time. That must be how they suck them in on the roulette tables, Stacey thought.
Stacey couldn’t have helped but notice that as Kimberly had disappeared into the hotel room, she’d been wearing a badge on her shirt that had read “Senior Librarian”. Way to rub in, Kim.
If Kimberly had worn that badge all the way from home, then libraries across the city would see a sudden influx of male visitors, seeking the obscure-book-finding assistance of a certain gorgeous raven-haired, brown-eyed goddess. Kimberly was the kind of woman who was more than happy to strut around in a skirt that seemed wholly unprofessional for someone who had to occasionally climb ladders to access the highest shelves, but you couldn’t argue with the results. A promotion was a promotion. Still, the nature of the game about to be proposed would go beyond anything even Kimberly had a history of doing.
Over her earpiece, she could hear a conversation playing out between Erica, Kimberly, and Mitchelson, the latter safely ensconced back at base and amiably chatting with the ladies over a video link to the laptop Stacey had left in the room. Mitchelson was a charmer, and if she hadn’t known him like she did, Stacey could have almost believed he was genuinely interested in helping these two poor women out of their current predicament, rather than just intensely interested in helping them out of their clothes. As she focused back in on the dialogue going on in her ear, she realised that Mitchelson was now going over the game rules.
“So Miss Matthews, Miss Reed, it’s all fairly simple. We at Decider Enterprises hate to see such feuds ruin the lives of two of our dear city’s most promising and - dare I say, beautiful - citizens, and we believe we have a solution that will ultimately be win-win for everyone. A modest game, with perhaps an immodest end, that will provide closure for both of you. The winner gets to stay here and live the life they deserve. The loser gets to move on and find the life they seek.”
“So,” cut in Kimberly, “what exactly are we talking about here?”
“A fair question, Miss Reed, a fair question from a fair maiden.” Stacey couldn’t help rolling her eyes at that as the charm seemed to drip from Mitchelson’s voice, “the game itself is also a simple affair. You both are supplied with playing outfits befitting your beauty, and we send you out to solve clues befitting your intellect.”
“Umm, where?” Erica asked, the nervousness coming through her voice as loud as day.
“Well,” Mitchelson replied, pausing for effect, “I would suggest that as the Library has been the latest battleground of your unfortunate war, that it should also be the final place where we settle this once and for all. I do always find the Library is a constant source of answers for all our problems.”
Stacey snorted at that, doubting very much whether Mitchelson had seen the inside of a library, or even a book that didn’t have naked women in it, during the past decade.
“Hell yes,” Kimberly called out, “I can’t think of anywhere better to put this bitch in her place than my place. My library.”
“Screw you, Reed,” Erica retorted, “you may have slept your way into that badge you’re wearing, but after I’m through with you, you’ll be sleeping back out on the streets where you belong!”
Stacey heard Mitchelson fall silent as Erica and Kimberly continued to trade insults, probably sitting back in his chair at the base with that goofy grin of his plastered all over his face. They both knew that neither woman was going to back out now, and Mitchelson let the tension ramp up a little bit more before interrupting the heated argument.
“Ladies, ladies, if I may suggest, I think it’s time for you both to settle this on the pitch, and leave all this tension behind. As well as that, I think it perhaps fairer that we play in the City Library than your own college library. After all, we wouldn’t want Miss Reed’s position to possibly influence the result, and the City Library is of course the pinnacle of knowledge and a crown jewel for our beloved metropolis. I can think of no grander place to end this feud. As you both know, we’ll send you your game outfits in the next day or so, and we’ll give you instructions as to where to start. Needless to say, any transgressions against our simple and easy to remember rules will involve meting out some penalties. We’ll only fire one warning shot, so please do try to observe the niceties of fair play. Please don’t attempt to get external help to solve the clues, interfere with your outfits and their behaviour in a manner we think is against the spirit of the game, and lastly, don’t hide out of sight or stop walking or running out in public.”
“So,” Kimberly interjected, “when I solve these clues, Erica’s outfit malfunctions totally humiliate her, right? Because just to be clear as her boss, I’m totally fine with that.”
“Bitch! When I finish solving those clues I just hope I’m there to witness you being fully exposed as the total and abject loser that you are.”
“Oh, Erica, is that any way to talk to your superior?” Stacey wasn’t even in the room, but she could still see the sneer on Kimberly’s face that accompanied that last comment.
“Yes, yes,” Mitchelson replied, having temporarily lost control of the conversation and now determined to bring it to an end, “the winner will have no regrets I can assure you, and we offer the loser a generous all-expenses-paid trip to an entirely new you. Of course, there is a small matter of the legalities...” at this point Stacey jolted back into life as she remembered her one and only task in this matter, and hurriedly walked over the door of room 5F. She slipped a package under the door, and then turned and half-sprinted for the stairwell, making it through the fire door to the stairs just before she heard the room door open and Kimberly Reed call out to the unseen phantom courier.
'Game on,' thought Agent Stacey Shackleton.
************
“Nice, ASS”, Mitchelson called out as Stacey returned back to base. You’d think - Stacey mused - that a full month after her male colleagues had stumbled halfwittedly across that particular acronym of her title and name, that they’d have moved on to something else. Apparently not.
“Who do you think is going to win ‘Dress Off’, then?” Stacey called back, refusing to rise to the provocation.
“Me!” said Mitchelson, happily.
***********
Two days later, Kimberly Reed stood in a stall of the third floor women’s toilets in the City Library, staring down at the bag that now contained what she’d worn as she walked into the building. The package from Decider Enterprises had been pretty clear, and she’d only momentarily entertained the idea of keeping her own underwear on beneath what the company had given her. Not that what she’d been told to wear actually looked all that bad, truth be told.
As she looked out of the open stall door into the mirror beyond, she saw her graceful, taut body show off her current outfit like a designer’s dream. Her raven-black hair contrasted with the simple white blouse perfectly, and the blouse itself was sufficiently opaque that there was no hint of the sexy blue brassiere she was wearing underneath. Of course, even if the bra wasn’t visible, mankind had yet to invent the blouse that could hide the sexy curves of Kimberly Reed’s perfect breasts, and no one was working to rectify that oversight either. It certainly didn’t help that the blouse seemed like it was just the right size to accentuate Kimberly’s body, and at least one size too small for any decent work environment. The blouse’s buttons would have their work cut out for them today.
The black Volvo had now been parked outside the main administration building of the community college for a solid hour and a half, the steady rain outside seeming to go from vertical to horizontal as the wind worked its way along the spectrum from playful zephyr to pre-cursor for a gale. Inside the waiting car, a man and a woman were also speeding along their own spectrum. They’d briskly departed anticipation station shortly after arriving outside the college, and were now a mere five minutes away from their final destination of complete and total frustration. The woman in the passenger seat - a beautiful brunette whose strikingly blue eyes were hidden behind an entirely unnecessary and wildly optimistic pair of sunglasses - flicked a bit of paper back across to the man in the driver’s seat. The man glanced down at it, thought for a moment, spun a pen in his hand, and made a mark before passing it back, returning his gaze back to the entrance to the college for any sign of their unsuspecting target.
For the past twenty minutes, the woman had been trying to convince the man of the folly of hanging around. Several spirited arguments had been made about the merits of returning to base, and the needlessness of loitering around when the afternoon sun had clearly given up doing likewise and was now hiding behind several layers of black cloud. The man had rebuffed all such arguments with appeals to the importance of the “mission”, along with pointed reminders of the responsibility handed to them by their employers. The woman had long since begun to suspect that the man’s dedication to the mission was also in no small part due to the fact that he’d be staying in the car when - or indeed even if - their target showed up, while she’d be the one having to get out in the rain.
The woman looked down at the paper handed to her, and realised that the latest in an interminable sequence of noughts-and-crosses games had once again reached a stalemate. As she summoned the last vestiges of her willpower to try and convince her companion of the futility of this exercise, the man nudged her and pointed out the windscreen. The main entrance doors to the college slid open.
From the relative warmth of the administration building, an agitated yet statuesque redheaded woman, around twenty-seven years of age, paused momentarily as she re-arranged the green raincoat that covered but in no way hid the curves of her clearly well-maintained body. There were, the woman in the car mentally noted, an awful lot of gym visits required to allow you to look that good even when the weather was this bad. Either that, or some breathtakingly unfair genetics at play. The redheaded lady pulled the green raincoat hood over her hair now, looked up critically at the black afternoon clouds, and managed to exceed the temperament of the wild weather around her by storming off towards the car park.
The man leaned over, smiled encouragingly at his companion, and theatrically gestured towards her door.
“Perhaps you’d be a gentleman and hop out and open it for me.” the female companion suggested, with a slight edge to the request. The man’s smile only widened, and in a mock show of regret he declined the kind offer to show off his gentlemanly side. The woman raised an eyebrow in response, but nonetheless removed the superfluous sunglasses and made sure her own coat was zipped up tight as she turned to open the door. The wind and rain suddenly buffeted into the interior of the previously warm car, and the man hurried her out, unceremoniously slamming the door shut as the woman began to hurry across the street to intercept Miss Green-coat, who was already halfway to her own car.
The man reached for his phone, tapped a button the interface, and waited for someone at the other end to pick up.
“Agent Mitchelson here,” the man said, as a voice at the other end acknowledged the call. He saw his companion `accidentally’ bump into their target, share a surprised and necessarily brief conversation, and then hurry to shelter with their red-headed quarry under the doorway of a neighbouring building.
“Agent Shackleton has made contact with the target.”
**********
“Stacey, it’s just not fair. That stupid bitch gets all the breaks and I’m sick of it.”
Stacey took another sip of her coffee as Erica launched into the now familiar rant about her arch-nemesis and sole fountain of all that was wrong with life: one Miss Kimberly Reed. Stacey had known Erica Matthews for almost exactly one month now, having enrolled in the same community college classes as both Erica and Kimberly at the beginning of the term, and in those short four weeks Stacey had heard a dozen takes on the same tale of woe, from both sides.
As Erica settled into the routine for one more encore performance, Stacey tried hard to focus on what she was saying and not on the general awfulness of the college cafe coffee that was currently her single source of warmth. Erica had, as expected, been more than happy to coincidentally run into her new friend outside the administration building, and had been quick to suggest a catch-up and de-brief on the latest atrocity against justice that Erica has just suffered. Stacey already had a fair idea of what had happened, it being the reason she’d been bored out of her mind in a car in the middle of a storm for an hour and a half. Still, it wouldn’t pay to let on that she knew, so Stacey put her acting skills to good use and leant forward in concern.
“Erica, I know things seem a little rough right now, but I’m sure there’s some way we can sort this out.”
“Oh, Stacey, you don’t know Kimberly like I do. I mean, she’s only got half the qualifications I do for that library job, and yet somehow she’s managed to get promoted ahead of me! It’s blatantly unfair, and I wouldn’t put it past the slut to have slept with the head librarian.”
Stacey involuntarily lost her focus on the conversation for a moment, as she tried to suppress a mental image of the twenty-six year old Kimberly Reed sleeping with the seventy-plus-year-old head librarian. She was half-way to suggesting that this seemed unlikely - though not, Stacey corrected herself, entirely implausible - when she realised that overly defending Kimberly’s character wouldn’t exactly play to the mission objectives.
“Well, you know how it is, Erica. Kimberly isn’t one to mess around when she wants something, and she’s a risk taker. Sometimes when you’re a risk taker you win big.”
Both Erica and Kimberly had worked in the community college library for over two years now, while also taking their anthropology courses together. Close proximity in both study and work had made their early attempts at friendship fall foul of the old saying that `familiarity breeds contempt’. They’d begun to compete, as so many before them, for grades, for men, and for status in their jobs. Erica and Kimberly were, Stacey noted to herself, extraordinarily beautiful women, gifted with natural sporting prowess and a reasonably sharp intellect. In fact, if they weren’t so easily distracted by this and past feuds, then both had glittering and highly successful careers ahead of them.
A senior position in the community college’s not-overly-impressive library had opened up only a fortnight ago, and of course Erica and Kimberly had both jumped at the chance. The job came with a pay raise, but that was almost inconsequential compared to the fact that the job meant that the successful applicant would effectively be the boss of the unlucky also-ran. Stacey wondered if it occurred to either woman that they could of course just change jobs, and that both had the qualifications - both mental and undeniably physical - to walk into any decent administration job, especially if men were on the hiring committee. Of course, Stacey thought, to be fair it wouldn’t have occurred to her if - no, be honest now, when - she’d been in a situation not-dissimilar to Erica’s.
The final decision had been made thirty minutes ago, and Erica had been in the same room as a beaming Kimberly when the victor was informed of her promotion. Stacey hadn’t known who was going to win the position, although she knew someone would be coming out of those doors upset and in need of a friend with a helpful suggestion. The fact that it was Erica did make Stacey’s life slightly easier, Kimberly would be the easier sell on the idea even though she was already winning life’s little contest. A victorious Erica would have been harder to convince.
“I take risks too, Stacey; it’s not like I’m just sitting back and letting Kimberly walk all over me. It’s just that the bitch is on a winning streak at the moment.”
Stacey looked across at Erica’s emerald-green eyes and saw hopelessness begin to well up in them, a hopelessness that seemed completely at odds with everything Erica had in her favour. Stacey reflected on that for a moment, and saw a lot of her old life in Erica. Unbidden, she felt genuine empathy for both Erica and Kimberly at the moment. Still, on to business.
“You know, Erica, it’s at times like these when the chips are down that sometimes you’ve just got to roll the die and hope for a hard six.”
“Yeah, well, right now I’m open to suggestions because I’m all out of ideas. I’ll be damned if I’m going to work under her, and I’ll be damned if I give her the satisfaction of quitting.”
“Right, right. So, seems like we’re at an impasse,” Stacey continued, smoothly, “perhaps what you guys need is a little outside help. Some professional assistance that can figure out a way to settle this. It’s not healthy for either of you, after all.”
“What, you mean counselling? I have to sit down in a room with her, and what... talk about our feelings?” Erica couldn’t hide the incredulousness in her voice as she sank back into her chair, her lithe body managing to incidentally turn a defeated slouch into something approximating a sexy pose.
“Sort of..., sort of...,” Stacey went on slowly, “although counselling is perhaps a little too protracted for what I was thinking of. You know, back before I met you both, I was in a certain situation that I needed help in, and someone put me in touch with a group that helped resolve that.”
Stacey managed to suppress the shudder as the thoughts of exactly how that had been resolved flooded back to the forefront of her mind. It had been eight months now though, and Stacey was a new person - so to speak. Time to move on, time to step up. She continued.
“So, there was this group; they had a couple of suggestions, and things resolved themselves, making me the woman I am today!” the irony of that statement was suitably lost on Erica, who had stopped sniffling in self-pity for a moment while her interest was piqued. “And I think they can help you too Erica. Both of you, because, you know, I’m a friend and friends help out friends.” At this point, Stacey pulled a card out of her wallet and handed it to Erica with a supportive smile.
Erica hesitantly leaned forward, took the card and looked at the uncomplicated plain white business card that simply advertised a name and an email address.
`Decider Enterprises’
***********
Agent Stacey Shackleton, promising future star and latest recruit at Decider Enterprises, stood in the corridor on the fifth floor of the Majestic Hotel, trying to not scratch the deeply irritating blonde wig that currently sat on top of her own luscious brown locks. The floral red dress that she wore wouldn’t exactly pass muster in a roll call of “costumes to wear when trying to blend into the background”; that said, Agent Stacey Shackleton was the kind of woman who could have been wearing state-of-the-art military urban camouflage gear and still stood out like a beacon to any man in a one-kilometer radius. She’d maintained her interest in sports after her enforced relocation, and her frequent gym visits had made the exercise bikes a popular destination for male gym-goers when she was ass-up in the front row pounding the virtual roads.
Right now, though, she wasn’t looking to hide from men, and women were at least less likely to look at her face and recognise her in this current ensemble. One of her targets, Miss Kimberly Reed, had just disappeared into room 5F, and Stacey afforded herself a moment’s relaxation as she signalled over the phone that both Miss Reed and Miss Matthews were now safely at the designated rendezvous point. She re-adjusted the earpiece in her left ear, and heard Agent Mitchelson confirm that he was ready too.
This was it, the culmination of months of effort. Ever since a scout for the organisation had first reported back that there was a promising feud going on in the local community college, Stacey and Mitchelson had been laying the groundwork for this day. Stacey had befriended both Erica and Kimberly, getting to know them and juggling the tricky assignment of being a confidant to both while not being seen to be an enemy of either. She’d been right that Erica would be the tougher of the two nuts to convince about the merits of what was about to happen, and it was fortuitous that the job had fallen to Kimberly, so as to give Erica the extra push she needed. Stacey idly wondered if Mitchelson had pulled some strings on that one, as she’d be damned if she could think of anything else he might have contributed so far. Typical of the man to allow her to do ninety percent of the work, knowing he’d get at least fifty percent of the credit.
Kimberly had been even easier to convince than Stacey had dared to think. She’d had the slight concern that Kimberly would be too satisfied with her latest victory to risk anything too final against Erica. However, it quickly appeared that her total dislike of the green-eyed, red-headed beauty was more than sufficient for her to consider riding her luck one more time. That must be how they suck them in on the roulette tables, Stacey thought.
Stacey couldn’t have helped but notice that as Kimberly had disappeared into the hotel room, she’d been wearing a badge on her shirt that had read “Senior Librarian”. Way to rub in, Kim.
If Kimberly had worn that badge all the way from home, then libraries across the city would see a sudden influx of male visitors, seeking the obscure-book-finding assistance of a certain gorgeous raven-haired, brown-eyed goddess. Kimberly was the kind of woman who was more than happy to strut around in a skirt that seemed wholly unprofessional for someone who had to occasionally climb ladders to access the highest shelves, but you couldn’t argue with the results. A promotion was a promotion. Still, the nature of the game about to be proposed would go beyond anything even Kimberly had a history of doing.
Over her earpiece, she could hear a conversation playing out between Erica, Kimberly, and Mitchelson, the latter safely ensconced back at base and amiably chatting with the ladies over a video link to the laptop Stacey had left in the room. Mitchelson was a charmer, and if she hadn’t known him like she did, Stacey could have almost believed he was genuinely interested in helping these two poor women out of their current predicament, rather than just intensely interested in helping them out of their clothes. As she focused back in on the dialogue going on in her ear, she realised that Mitchelson was now going over the game rules.
“So Miss Matthews, Miss Reed, it’s all fairly simple. We at Decider Enterprises hate to see such feuds ruin the lives of two of our dear city’s most promising and - dare I say, beautiful - citizens, and we believe we have a solution that will ultimately be win-win for everyone. A modest game, with perhaps an immodest end, that will provide closure for both of you. The winner gets to stay here and live the life they deserve. The loser gets to move on and find the life they seek.”
“So,” cut in Kimberly, “what exactly are we talking about here?”
“A fair question, Miss Reed, a fair question from a fair maiden.” Stacey couldn’t help rolling her eyes at that as the charm seemed to drip from Mitchelson’s voice, “the game itself is also a simple affair. You both are supplied with playing outfits befitting your beauty, and we send you out to solve clues befitting your intellect.”
“Umm, where?” Erica asked, the nervousness coming through her voice as loud as day.
“Well,” Mitchelson replied, pausing for effect, “I would suggest that as the Library has been the latest battleground of your unfortunate war, that it should also be the final place where we settle this once and for all. I do always find the Library is a constant source of answers for all our problems.”
Stacey snorted at that, doubting very much whether Mitchelson had seen the inside of a library, or even a book that didn’t have naked women in it, during the past decade.
“Hell yes,” Kimberly called out, “I can’t think of anywhere better to put this bitch in her place than my place. My library.”
“Screw you, Reed,” Erica retorted, “you may have slept your way into that badge you’re wearing, but after I’m through with you, you’ll be sleeping back out on the streets where you belong!”
Stacey heard Mitchelson fall silent as Erica and Kimberly continued to trade insults, probably sitting back in his chair at the base with that goofy grin of his plastered all over his face. They both knew that neither woman was going to back out now, and Mitchelson let the tension ramp up a little bit more before interrupting the heated argument.
“Ladies, ladies, if I may suggest, I think it’s time for you both to settle this on the pitch, and leave all this tension behind. As well as that, I think it perhaps fairer that we play in the City Library than your own college library. After all, we wouldn’t want Miss Reed’s position to possibly influence the result, and the City Library is of course the pinnacle of knowledge and a crown jewel for our beloved metropolis. I can think of no grander place to end this feud. As you both know, we’ll send you your game outfits in the next day or so, and we’ll give you instructions as to where to start. Needless to say, any transgressions against our simple and easy to remember rules will involve meting out some penalties. We’ll only fire one warning shot, so please do try to observe the niceties of fair play. Please don’t attempt to get external help to solve the clues, interfere with your outfits and their behaviour in a manner we think is against the spirit of the game, and lastly, don’t hide out of sight or stop walking or running out in public.”
“So,” Kimberly interjected, “when I solve these clues, Erica’s outfit malfunctions totally humiliate her, right? Because just to be clear as her boss, I’m totally fine with that.”
“Bitch! When I finish solving those clues I just hope I’m there to witness you being fully exposed as the total and abject loser that you are.”
“Oh, Erica, is that any way to talk to your superior?” Stacey wasn’t even in the room, but she could still see the sneer on Kimberly’s face that accompanied that last comment.
“Yes, yes,” Mitchelson replied, having temporarily lost control of the conversation and now determined to bring it to an end, “the winner will have no regrets I can assure you, and we offer the loser a generous all-expenses-paid trip to an entirely new you. Of course, there is a small matter of the legalities...” at this point Stacey jolted back into life as she remembered her one and only task in this matter, and hurriedly walked over the door of room 5F. She slipped a package under the door, and then turned and half-sprinted for the stairwell, making it through the fire door to the stairs just before she heard the room door open and Kimberly Reed call out to the unseen phantom courier.
'Game on,' thought Agent Stacey Shackleton.
************
“Nice, ASS”, Mitchelson called out as Stacey returned back to base. You’d think - Stacey mused - that a full month after her male colleagues had stumbled halfwittedly across that particular acronym of her title and name, that they’d have moved on to something else. Apparently not.
“Who do you think is going to win ‘Dress Off’, then?” Stacey called back, refusing to rise to the provocation.
“Me!” said Mitchelson, happily.
***********
Two days later, Kimberly Reed stood in a stall of the third floor women’s toilets in the City Library, staring down at the bag that now contained what she’d worn as she walked into the building. The package from Decider Enterprises had been pretty clear, and she’d only momentarily entertained the idea of keeping her own underwear on beneath what the company had given her. Not that what she’d been told to wear actually looked all that bad, truth be told.
As she looked out of the open stall door into the mirror beyond, she saw her graceful, taut body show off her current outfit like a designer’s dream. Her raven-black hair contrasted with the simple white blouse perfectly, and the blouse itself was sufficiently opaque that there was no hint of the sexy blue brassiere she was wearing underneath. Of course, even if the bra wasn’t visible, mankind had yet to invent the blouse that could hide the sexy curves of Kimberly Reed’s perfect breasts, and no one was working to rectify that oversight either. It certainly didn’t help that the blouse seemed like it was just the right size to accentuate Kimberly’s body, and at least one size too small for any decent work environment. The blouse’s buttons would have their work cut out for them today.
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Kimberly absentmindedly smoothed out an non-existent crease in the discreet black-checkered skirt that went down to nearly knee-length, from under which emerged two magnificent legs encased in patterned black stockings. Further up, matching blue panties complemented her blue bra, although she was determined that neither would see the light of day. A pair of surprisingly sensible black work shoes, and a couple of discreet silver wrist bracelets rounded out the apparel, while a small black belt with silver decorative metal bands on the hips also helped keep the skirt in place.
She’d assumed that somewhere in the building, Erica Matthews would have stripped down by now and be wearing something much like this. Kimberly silently vowed to whatever Gods were currently watching that any clothes Erica was now wearing wouldn’t be on long enough to need a wash afterwards. A red light, somewhat out of place in a women’s toilet, shone above the mirror that Kimberly was using to check out her reflection. As Kimberly gazed on, checking herself out and wondering what exactly the trick was to the outfit she wore, an earpiece tucked away in her left ear crackled and sprang into life.
“Miss Reed, only moments to go now. No last minute nerves I hope? If so, at least you’re in the perfect place to get rid of them.” The voice seemed very happy with itself, and Kimberly just flicked her black hair slightly and concentrated on herself. On some level she was nervous, of course she was. She knew the consequences of failure. She knew that the discreetness of what she was wearing was a temporary measure if she wasn’t on her game. And if there was one person she was determined not to lose to, it was that bitch Erica Matthews.
“Game on.” Kimberly said simply, knowing the voice would hear her.
“Game on then”, the voice replied, equally simply. The red light flickered for a moment, and suddenly went to green. Kimberly Reed took a big breath in, arched back her shoulders, and took her first step out of the stall.
*************
At precisely the same time, Erica Matthews emerged from the women’s toilets on the fifth floor of the City Library, and was immediately struck with the dilemma of which direction to go in.
The first clue, as she suspected all subsequent clues would do too, was supposed to lead her to a real book in the library. Once she’d found that, then she’d hopefully be able to find the nearby fake book planted by the game masters, and inside that was the next clue. And if all that sounded convoluted and confusing, it was nothing compared to the difficulty of the clue itself. The clue had been delivered by the earpiece voice as she stepped through the toilet door into the bustling public space of the Library’s Law section. Having been told the clue though, she was still none the wiser as to where to go.
She tried to focus more on the actual clue, and less on the fact that if Kimberly solved four clues before she did, then Erica would find herself in a world of trouble unchartered by any map in this Library. She needlessly adjusted her white blouse and patterned skirt for the tenth time, before deciding on going left as being as good a course of action as anything else she could think of right then. At least, she thought, her racy green bra and panties were adequately hidden by her attire. She’d still be ogled by the male patrons of course, but she’d grown used to that over the years. At least she was putting up a decent front, for the time being.
As Erica headed left, she began to think through which section of the library the clue was trying to lead her towards. She was painfully aware that if Kimberly got there first, then the voice in her ear would have to give her the next clue; that would come with a cost. A wardrobe malfunction, type unknown. She spun the clue around in her head, trying to seeing all the different angles that she could tackle it from. Somewhere out there Kimberly would be doing the same. Erica could mentally envision Kimberly striding around smugly, possibly en route to the first book already. 'Damn it, Erica,' she admonished herself, 'focus on your own game.'
As she walked through the aisles she saw the escalators to the fourth floor, and on a whim started walking towards them. Even dressed as modestly as she currently was, several men that she passed stopped what they were reading and took the time to blatantly stare directly at her ass as she strode on. Without turning around, Erica could feel their eyes piercing her skirt to the green panties underneath. Come on, why was this throwing her? She’d worn more revealing stuff than this around in public without a second thought in the past. But it wasn’t how the clothes looked now that was causing her nervousness, she realised. It was how they might behave in the all-too-immediate future...
***********
Kimberly Reed arrived at the fourth floor via the central escalators, and took an immediate right into the Sciences section, making a bee-line for the geography books. As she did, she couldn’t help but notice a pair of similarly clad legs on the nearby escalator coming down from the fifth floor. Kimberly didn’t need to wait and see the rest of the body that followed those legs to know that Erica was hot on her heels, and Kimberly broke out into a very un-librarian-like run through the aisles. She was desperate to reach the book before her nemesis.
Of course, at this point on any normal day Kimberly would have aimed herself for one of the myriad of public library kiosks scattered around the place, and would instantly know where the book she was looking for was hidden. But naturally, accessing the kiosks was a strict no-no, and the voice in the earpiece had made it pretty clear that this would be interpreted as seeking outside assistance. A penalty offence. Kimberly Reed was in no mood to give Erica a leg up by falling afoul of penalties this early in the game.
The aisles were separated into different subcategories within Geography, and fortunately for her the earth sciences had been something of a speciality back at high school. That said, it was a big field, and looking for one book was not unlike looking for a needle in a haystack. She cursed herself for being too reliant on computers to find things these days, and frantically scanned the shelves around her, stealing the occasional glance back at the escalators, half-expecting to see Erica striding towards her.
When Erica failed to materialise, Kimberly gave herself a moment to compose herself, and settled on a far more methodical search. It had to be in either this aisle or the next, she thought, so that narrowed it down to only a couple of hundred books. She ran her fingers over the book spines, almost willing the book she wanted to jump out as if summoned by her thoughts alone. As she rapidly looked from one title to the next, something suddenly fired in her brain, and she paused to check the numbering system properly. Bingo. Kimberly broke out in a broad smile, indulged herself in an undignified dance, and then dashed over three shelves to where an innocuous brown book hid between two much larger volumes. To Kimberly, it was suddenly the most beautiful book in the world.
************
Erica Matthews felt she was beginning to get into the swing of things now, as she purposefully strode towards the Geography area on the fourth floor. Granted, it had taken her more than a few minutes to conjure up the now-obvious solution, but anyone can suffer from initial nerves, and now Erica was determined to make up for lost time.
That quiet, powerful determination carried her all the way to the sixteenth aisle, past dozens of unsuspecting patrons, and lasted for precisely one second after she rounded the corner and started heading down the aisle. Standing half way down was a woman dressed identically to her. Same tight blouse, same skirt, same bracelets, same stockings, same shoes. The attire was where the similarity ended though, for Kimberly Reed now wore a smug, self-satisfied face that clearly contrasted with Erica’s sudden shock of realisation.
At that exact moment, the earpiece chose to chip in its own thoughts.
“Well, Miss Matthews, it appears our game has now advanced. Miss Reed has found your very first clue, and in the spirit of fair play we’ll be sharing that with you shortly. However ...” the voice trailed off as Erica scrunched her eyes shut. She could still see the grinning Kimberly in her mind’s eye, and the fact that the earpiece had now fallen silent was no comfort at all. Seconds passed, as Erica waited for the inevitable, and then she realised she been rooted on the spot for nearly thirty seconds. As far as she could tell, as she worked up the courage to open her eyes, nothing untoward had actually happened. She opened one eye, and noticed that Kimberly had disappeared. Damn, damn, damn. She had the second clue, and the earpiece was still maintaining an ominous silence. Get on with it, she thought, give me the next clue!
She took an experimental step forward, and was beginning to calm back down when she felt something hit her shoe. It was something small and fairly inconsequential, but she still felt it tap against her toes and roll on to the floor. She looked down to see what it was and felt another couple of taps on her other foot this time, and also spotted a fourth object roll towards the shelving unit in the periphery of her vision. As she paused to look closer at what they were, she suddenly froze in horror. They were buttons. Blouse buttons. Her hands and eyes instantly went to her top, and she could both see and feel what had happened. The blouse material, somewhat figure hugging before, was now moving more freely that it should as she moved her upper body. She realised with a growing sense of panic that the only thing now keeping her blouse closed was a single, gallant button at nipple height. The blouse now gaped at the top where a button had gotten AWOL, while below her nipple line the situation was even worse. The blouse was now hanging lose, naturally separating out further and further the closer it got to her waist, uninhibited by any pesky buttons to keep it locked together. The gap in the blouse teased and revealed her toned stomach to anyone who cared to look.
Erica knew with a fatalistic certainty that as she walked or ran, the state of her blouse would only become more and more pronounced as the airflow had it’s wicked way with the loose material. Caught between a desire to get to the next clue first, and a desire to not completely expose her sexy tight stomach muscles to the general citizenry of the library, Erica found herself frozen in place.
The earpiece had clearly noticed this, as it chimed in after a few more moments with a not so gentle reminder.
“Miss Matthews, I’m sure you’re just taking a moment to reflect on the ingenuity of Decider Enterprises’ clothing engineers; however, unfortunately our legal department are absolute sticklers for the rules, and I’m afraid to say you’ve been standing still for just a minute now. Believe or not that is a penalty offence. Seems unfair to me too, but I am just the humble rules enforcer, and I leave the actual rule making to others.”
Erica opened her mouth to protest, but wisely decided to also start walking forward, heading along the relative privacy of the now deserted aisle. She tried to gather her thoughts before heading back out into the main walkways of the library, and after only a few steps, the earpiece sprang to life once more.
“Now, Miss Matthews, there’s good news and even better news. The good news is that the first penalty is a warning shot, so keep up with the rules and those clothes your modelling so wonderfully don’t have to break down any further. The even better news is that I can now give you clue #2. Good luck Miss Matthews, I always appreciate a closely fought contest!”
***********
Kimberly Reed jogged between the aisles, ignoring the disapproving stares she attracted from a group of older ladies who were gossiping near the magazine section on the ground floor. Clearly the old biddies were not of the prevailing opinion that an Amazonian physique and meticulously maintained skin complexion allowed one a certain leeway in having to follow the library’s rules on decorum. Kimberly didn’t even consider slowing down to a more respectable walk. After all, she was fairly certain that running through the library with clothes on rated far more towards the milder end of the heinous rules infringements spectrum than calming walking through the library stark naked. Erica would be the proof of that very shortly, thought Kimberly, with a sudden rush of anticipation and glee.
Of course, technically, she hadn’t actually found the second clue yet. However she’d left Erica rooted to the spot back on the fourth floor, and she wouldn’t put it past the woman to still be stuck there in the same place, paralysed by her usual dithering and indecision.
Kimberly hadn’t hung around long enough to see what punishment had been meted out to Erica, but her imagination was already firing on all cylinders, visualising the enemy in various states of distress and undress.
She’d made her way to the ground floor where the fiction sections sprawled out by the main entrance, and where the weekly magazines were thumbed through for any new trivia, gossip, innuendo or embarrassing photos that had been tossed out to a ravenous reading public. She’d been this way before, she must have. Kimberly knew that the magazine covers all blurred into one after a while, but she was certain she recognised the flabby beach photo that adorned one of the magazines directly in front of her. And that meant that Kimberly was now doing circuits of the same damn patch of the library, which was at least more exercise than the poor lady on the magazine cover.
Kimberly’s good mood took its first downward turn at that point, as she realised that without actually knowing where she was going, she was no better off than the stupid bitch she’d ditched three floors back.
She ran the clue over in her mind one more time.
She’d come to this floor almost by instinct rather than by any great plan, and she’d momentarily screwed her nose up in thought as she realised she’d just have to trust to that subconscious instinct one more time. She raised a leg out in front of her, wiggled her foot experimentally to the left and to the right a few times, and then decisively placed it pointing right. She pivoted on the spot with all the grace of someone with far too many childhood ballerina lessons under their belt, and pressed on.
**********
Erica stepped off the escalators onto the second floor and desperately resisted the urge to break into a run. She’d already tried that on the third floor, and had barely contained a shriek as the bottom half of her blouse billowed out behind her like a sail. The three men she’d been passing at the time certainly gave the impression that she’d just consigned their attempts at actually studying this afternoon to the waste bin.
Erica had quickly learnt that at least if she walked, the blouse resettled back into a semblance of normality, and her well-toned tummy didn’t quite end up as the star attraction wherever she visited.
She tried to rationalise it as being no different than if she were at the beach in her bikini. She was certainly aware that Erica-in-the-polka-dot-bikini was a sight that brought more cheer to at least half her fellow beach goers than any amount of fresh air or scenic ocean vistas. But no matter how much she tried to convince herself of that, embarrassment welled up inside her every time she passed someone with that now-familiar surprised expression on their face. There was was something about how the bottom of her green brassiere seemed to indecently peak out from under the thin white line of blouse material held together by the valiant, sole remaining button. There was something about how the blouse, now gaping open at the top above her cleavage, flashed a streak of green undergarment above each nipple. She’d certainly worn less in the past, but strangely she’d never felt so naked as she did now.
Erica tried to get a grip on herself and think about the clue she’d received. Kimberly had a head start, and for all Erica knew her earpiece might ominously burst into life at any moment now. She’d taken a punt on the fact that the game’s designers would want to maximise her exposure around the library, so it was a fair bet the next clue was on another level. Floor two, where she now stood, was where the Humanities collections resided. Art history, religion, anthropology, the usual array of great works and their lesser cousins.
But that didn’t sound right to Erica, and as she cast around in all directions, walking aimlessly around the center of the floor, she peered down over a mezzanine balcony to the ground floor beneath her.
She froze as her eyes instantly fell on the unsuspecting figure of Kimberly Reed, patrolling her own route between two aisles in the Science Fiction section below. From her vantage point above, Erica saw the way heads turned to follow Kimberly when their owners didn’t think she was looking.
Argh! Science Fiction! Of course! Erica suddenly had the flash of inspiration that landed her the solution to the second clue, and she had the terrible suspicion that Kimberly was only moments away from the book in question.
Erica turned immediately and flew towards the escalators. The slipstream caused by her sudden running caused the blouse to open out behind her again. As she started leaping down the steps of the escalator, pushing unceremoniously past book-laden library users, her mind coalesced on one single overpowering thought - she had to get to that clue first, she just had to!
Fighting her way past what now seemed to be rush-hour foot traffic at the library, Erica arrived at the ground floor and immediately accelerated towards the Science Fiction area. She’d lost sight of Kimberly the minute she’d hit ground level, and her eyes now darted all over the place trying to locate the enemy, while her brain tried to multi-task on exactly what shelf the book might be on. As she did, the current state of her blouse finally "ahem’ed" it’s way to the forefront of Erica’s mind, causing a momentary distraction.
Rounding the corner of an aisle, she ran head-long into a rotund gentleman browsing through a series of Anime books. Erica stumbled to the floor as she bounced off the man, and she let out a very unladylike curse as her hands couldn’t decide whether to stop her fall or protect her blouse.
The man she collided with also grunted in surprise as the lithe beauty was sent sprawling, but with a speed that belied his belly size, he sprang to the rescue and helped Erica to her feet.
“Terribly sorry, m’lady!” the man said, apparently apologising more out of force of habit than due to any actual blame on his part.
“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Erica quickly replied, regathering her breath, her thoughts, and her balance, “thanks, and sorry.”
The man grinned nervously, and waved away Erica’s own apology as being something entirely unnecessary to proffer.
“Not at all, not at all, I was lost in my own world, and...” the man’s voice trailed off as whatever reserves of willpower he was using to look Erica in the eyes were finally exhausted, and his gaze settled lovingly on the bountiful lands of promise immediately below.
Erica felt a tsunami of embarrassment sweep over her as she became incredibly self-conscious of her exposure in front of this strange man. Making an involuntary high-pitched “eek”, she gathered the misbehaving sides of her blouse in one hand, covered up, turned and simply ran. Clasping the blouse together, she sped through the aisles, fully expecting to reach her destination only to find the mocking smile of Kimberly greeting her.
So it was with a mild surprise tinged with wild hope that Erica Matthews suddenly found herself standing in front of a nondescript shelf, within arms reach of a battered book trapped between two inconsequential tomes. Only a couple of books down from that battered but beautiful text, was a simple grey book with “DE” emblazoned on the spine. Erica hesitated for only a moment, as she realised that the lack of any quip from the earpiece meant that she’d actually, honest to God, reached the clue first. Barely able to contain her excitement, she ripped the grey book off the shelf, almost causing a small avalanche of other books as the tightly packed line was disturbed by her enthusiastic haste.
'Come on, come on, come on!' she thought to herself, as she thumbed through the book and then simply resorted to holding it by the spine and flapping it in the general direction of the floor.
And there it was. Half falling, half floating out between two back pages, a single sheet of paper with a single bold heading: “Clue”.
Finally, after what was already a long day, Erica felt a warm glow of confidence build up in her as she grabbed the sheet of paper. She proudly raised it in the air as if it were an Olympic medal. As happy as she was, she even impulsively gave a tall, bespectacled man down the aisle a quick cheesecake pose and a cheeky grin. She swore she could see the man’s jaw slowly and uncontrollably drop open as she blew him a quick kiss.
Finally, Erica thought; finally my luck’s beginning to turn.
“Indeed Miss Mathews, congratulations on evening the score. I suspect I don’t need to tell you what Miss Reed is about to discover about her blouse, and I do so hope that the thought of that impending embarrassment carries you through what I’m about to say. You see, I certainly do enjoy a close fight, but there is the small matter of the rules.”
Erica’s entire face froze, with the sole exception of her eyes, which in turn slowly tracked downwards towards where one of her hands still grasped the blouse together in front.
“Yes, you see, interfering with the playing outfit or our audience’s view of the aforementioned outfit is - sadly - something we’re obliged to take seriously, and I do so fear - if my arithmetic is correct - that this would very much be penalty number two ...”
Erica took a long breath in as she considered that.
“Oh, sh...”
[To be concluded in Part 2.]
