[In Parts One and Two, ex-best-friends Bryony and Maria enlist the help of Angelica Highsmith and her unusual organisation to run an elaborate and very public stripping game to permanently settle a feud. The two women are racing around their University Campus on Graduation Dare, solving clues, as their specially prepared cheerleader outfits begin to malfunction. They are now hurtling towards the climax of their game, which has the potential for extreme embarrassment on a very public stage for the loser…]
****
Bryony held the box aloft and gave a huge sigh of relief. As she exhaled, her pom-pom tasselled boobs rose and fell, and there was rustling noise that bordered on the jaunty as the threads dangled and swayed on her breasts.
Bryony permitted herself a small smile, possibly the first genuine smile since she’d started this game. Looking upwards, she whispered a quiet “thank you” to whichever Gods or Goddesses had chosen to look favourably down upon her today and clenched the box tightly. Her hands were trembling and she only realised how much when she saw how vigorously the box was shaking.
Whether it was luck or just the benefits of having a good memory, Bryony had quickly surmised that the clue had been referring to the Audio/Visual vault in the basement of the Auditorium Hall, and had gone directly there. She whispered a quick thank you to the crusty old caretaker who, several years back when she’d competed in a state-wide debate competition in this very Hall, had made her stay behind and help clean up the place after she’d accidentally knocked a whole bunch of expensive A/V gear to the ground after an over-exuberant victory celebration. That had meant she’d previously been to the musty enclosed dungeon-like A/V vault before, and she’d remembered being somewhat surprised to find stacks upon stacks of old videos cluttering up the place. At the time, a cursory inspection had revealed they were the decaying archives of recordings from past Graduation Events, which the University had kept even after more recent events were now digitally recorded.
The vault was in the foundations of the building, and the videos were of families and friends who had supported past graduates as they completed this successful chapter of life and were starting out on new chapters.
Thankfully whatever A/V gear was needed for the Graduation Event had long since been transported upstairs in readiness for the formal proceedings to start, and she now had the room to herself.
“Congratulations Ms Richmond, you’ve found the final target!” Bryony didn’t know whether the voice really sounded more friendly than before, or whether it was simply that the flood of relief sweeping through Bryony made her actually happy to hear it for once. Either way, the voice continued on with a smooth, easy-going manner. “With the final clue and target acquired you have won our game. Congratulations on such a fantastic effort, and of course, I do believe you’re about to be rewarded with a much-fought-for sight.”
Almost on cue, Maria barged through the door, breathing heavily and clearly having run a long distance to get here. Just as with Bryony, Maria’s breasts were swaying from the exertions of running, and the dangling, jiggling tassels only seemed to accentuate her embarrassment. Dear God, thought Bryony, is that how I’d looked when I was running?!
Maria came to a screeching halt as she spotted Bryony and then her eyes swivelled up to focus on the box Bryony was holding aloft. Her mouth fell open and Bryony saw a look of absolute horror sweep over her opponent’s face.
Maria took a few faltering steps back towards the door she’d just come through, and then went wide-eyed as she felt something happen to her clothes. In shock, she gave a low shriek and turned and ran. Bryony hesitated, her mind caught in a battle of competing emotions, and then gave chase, throwing the box back onto the table.
As she hurried out the door, she saw a struggling Maria grappling with her dress, one hand clamped across her chest, hobbling along. Her opponent gave up whatever battle she was waging about halfway through the corridor, and then disappeared into another side room. Bryony frowned and froze, uncertain of what to do next. The sound of footsteps somewhere in the distance made up Bryony’s mind for her, and she sprinted down the corridor and dodged into the same room Maria had just disappeared into. Shutting the door behind her, Bryony found herself in a large changing room, seemingly designed for a group of performers, with mirrors and lights scattered about all over the place, and a motley collection of chairs and boxes scattered around. There were also portable clothes racks, but notably, there were absolutely no clothes on any of them. Bryony walked slowly into the middle of the changing room as she looked around. Maria was pressed up against a wall, but with nowhere else to go.
Bryony didn’t say a word but just looked on curiously as Maria’s outfit completed its final transformation.
Maria blushed beetroot red as her left hand pressed hard into her crotch, trying to cover up her womanhood while her right arm squeezed across her ample breasts, hiding her nipples but doing little else to protect the final flimsy threads of her dignity. Only a thin belt remained around her waist, along with a couple of bracelets on her wrists and a pair of socks and shoes that did absolutely nothing to help mitigate Maria’s predicament.
The tattered remains of Maria’s skirt, top and pom-pom nipple tassels lay on the floor, and Maria tried to retrieve the wreckage of her outfit, only to find the material disintegrating in her hands. With a moan, she gave up and focussed instead on trying to use her hands to provide some faint semblance of modesty and protection.
Bryony stood still and looked on at her defeated opponent, running her eyes over the naked woman’s body, lingering slightly on the sight of Maria desperately trying to cover her most intimate parts with her hands and arms.
Then Bryony heard Maria give a strangled yelp and looked on in amazement as slowly Maria’s hands and arms moved. The hand clasped over her crotch edged up, and the way that Maria’s eyes went saucepan wide told Bryony that Maria was not a willing participant in what her hands were doing. As Bryony looked on in silent amazement, Maria put up a struggle against the way her hands were now revealing her crotch and breasts, trying to twist and turn so that Bryony wouldn’t get a front-row seat to her ultimate humiliation in all of its naked glory.
The bracelet on her left hand connected to the belt and then began to be pulled around her side. Beginning to panic, Maria realised that some form of moving magnetic object in the material of the belt was causing her bracelet to be pulled along her waist, and her wrist was being effectively pulled around her back. Her right arm, desperately fighting the strong magnetic pull but losing with every inch, was similarly now almost connected to the belt by the wrist, and as her left hand disappeared around her back, Maria knew with absolute clarity what the future was for her right wrist.
Too late, the mad thought of trying to get the belt off occurred to her. There was a small clasp on the front of the belt, however, the bracelets and their continual attraction to the belt meant that no matter how much she squirmed, she couldn’t get a finger to the clasp to unhook and relieve herself of the diabolical item. Now her right wrist connected to the belt with an audible sharp metal clink that echoed in her ears. Groaning, she dropped into a squat and tried to hide her sizeable boobs behind her knees as Bryony took a few hesitant steps closer to her vanquished former friend.
Bryony looked on with a strange kind of detached curiosity as Maria’s right wrist chartered a similar journey to that which her left wrist had just completed. It was a surreal sight, that of her former best friend and now arch-enemy, completely naked, huddled on the ground, and with both arms pinned behind her back. Maria looked thoroughly defeated, and Bryony saw a look of resigned misery on her face. The full impact of the words they’d both heard at the start of the game, the words that had, in brutal, vivid detail, stated the true cost of losing and the impending experience for the unlucky loser, all hit Bryony like a body blow. She took a step back. And Bryony wasn’t even the one who’d have to do it! Bryony looked silently at Maria, and couldn’t even fathom what would be racing through her former friend’s mind. Would she just run? Surely, Bryony mused, she’d have done that in Maria’s place.
“So we’ve now reached the grand finale of our game, ladies.” The voice said, in a tone whose calmness was at complete odds with the mental states of both of the competitors. “There is still the small question of graduation of course. Both of you have worked extremely hard on your studies over the past four years and both truly deserve the accolades you’re both about to receive. Of course, in Maria’s case, sadly the applause for her academic accomplishments may be overshadowed somewhat by the rapturous ovations for her ample assets. However, Ms Richmond, as the winner, you will find a graduation gown waiting for you in a location I’ll shortly divulge. However,” the voice stopped for a moment, and a shivering Maria and a mesmerised Bryony both strained to hear more from the stranger who had been their constant companion for the past few hours, “there is still the opportunity for Ms Richmond to show mercy to Ms Higgins.”
Maria looked up sharply at Bryony, with an expression that oscillated between hope and fear.
“The game has been won, so Ms Richmond need not fear losing, however should she wish to release the clasp on Ms Higgins’ belt, then the belt would instantly release Ms Higgins’ bracelets from bondage, and I rather suspect Ms Higgins would have a slightly easier time of collecting her degree, what with being able to cover herself and also not having to ask the President of the University to put the certificate in her mouth, unable as she is at the moment to reach around to take it off him.”
Maria groaned and her head dropped, as she mentally pictured having to stumble across the graduation stage, in front of peers, staff and who knew how many other onlookers, naked and hands bound behind her back, having to open her mouth and grasp the certificate between her teeth while a visibly stunned President gawked in amazement at her nude and vulnerable body. In her vision, the certificate fell out of her mouth, and an abjectly defeated Maria had to drop to her knees and struggle to pick up the certificate in her mouth off the floor, while her bare bottom wiggled at the audience and caused an eruption of laughter, mocking and camera flashes.
For a moment, she wildly considered simply not going to graduation, but she remembered what the legal contract had said: the one she’d so foolishly signed only yesterday. Failure to graduate would mean that Maria would have to pay the voice’s organisation a sum equal to the full cost of her tuition, and that was a substantial amount indeed.
“Of course,” the voice said, sounding a note of caution, “while Ms Richmond need not fear losing her title of the ultimate winner, modifying Ms Higgins’ outfit by removing the belt would still constitute a penalty, and a penalty would similarly render Ms Richmond naked.” Bryony took a deep breath in as she reached the end of the train of thought the voice was leading them down, moments before the voice itself. “And as you’ll appreciate, a contestant once naked must remain naked until after graduation.”
Bryony gave a short disbelieving laugh. “So,” Bryony called out, knowing that the voice would hear her, “I take mercy on Maria and make her humiliation slightly less humiliating, and in exchange, I have to parade my tits and ass out for the entire graduation hall to see?”
The voice completed the impressive act of conveying a verbal shrug, and then said “Well, yes, life is full of choices. Leave now, grab the graduation gown, graduate with the degree you’ve so thoroughly earned, and a new and successful life awaits you. You wanted closure, and I dare say that bearing witness to a bare Maria walking across the graduation stage would qualify as closure.”
Bryony rang her tongue over her lips as she took a few steps towards the exit.
“On the other hand, stay, show mercy, help Maria, and you still get the satisfaction of knowing you won. We’ll help Maria start up a new life and you’ll never have to see her again. We’ll naturally help you too if you decide that streaking naked across the stage is the right move for you.”
Bryony raised an eyebrow and shook her head in disbelief. Putting a hand up to her forehead, she tried to rub away the confusion that was clouding her mind, but to no effect. “So tell me, O mysterious voice, I’m guessing others have played your game before. How many others showed mercy?”
“None.” Was the simple and honest response. Maria’s shoulders drooped even further and her face, which for a split second had entertained a mad hope, was crestfallen.
“There you go Maria, no precedents. And remember what I said outside the hotel?”
“Don’t… don’t expect… mercy.” She said, although there was a pleading tone in her voice even as she recited the words Bryony had given her.
Bryony nodded, and then looked at the exit, taking another few steps towards freedom. She was about four last steps away from the door when she stopped, turned on her heels and looked down at the squatting Maria.
“Stand up.” She ordered. Maria began to protest, but knowing how vulnerable she was, she begrudgingly hauled herself up, her large swaying breasts no longer partly obscured by her knees, and her wrists bound tightly behind her back so she was afforded no means of protecting herself from whoever wanted to look. Bryony wanted to look.
She let her gaze drift up and down Maria’s naked form, seeing the chagrin on her opponent’s face as Bryony took the liberty of allowing herself a second and third look up and down, before crossing her arms and pursing her lips. “Why?” Bryony asked simply, the anger she’d felt before now beginning to falter.
Maria looked up at her, shame and embarrassment evident on her face. “Wh… what do you mean?” She mumbled.
“Why send the video to Grant?”
Maria looked to the side, knees locked together, trying to squeeze her thighs together in a futile attempt to block Bryony’s clear view of her pussy.
“He… he was bad for you,” Maria said, plaintively, looking up at Bryony and making direct eye contact for the first time. “He didn’t understand. We were best friends and then he drove us apart.” Maria’s voice broke for a second, and she visibly trembled as she fought to find the resolve to continue. “I… I missed you.”
Bryony rolled her eyes. “So you showed him that video. You knew what he’d do. You knew who he was.” Grant Tremain was a well-known member of a well-known family, however, it was a deeply religious family whose beliefs had so far not been moved by the progressive flow that had led to more tolerance in other sectors of society. A video of Bryony and Maria making out – an experimental phase that Bryony had gone through for a short while – even if it was under the sheets with no visible nudity, was simply not something that Grant Tremain was going to let slide. The break-up and the name-calling had all been messy, and a very angry Bryony had turned some of those names back on Maria too when Bryony had confronted her.
Maria nodded her expression a cloud of regret. “He was bad for you.” She repeated, numbly. “He was bad for us.”
“There is no us,” Bryony retorted, but the anger in her voice was missing and in its place was a definite note of uncertainty.
Maria looked at Bryony again, and Bryony could see a single tear welling in the auburn-haired beauty’s eyes. Instinctively she took a step forward to wipe the tear away, before steeling herself and maintaining her distance.
“I was angry. I wasn’t thinking properly. I desperately wanted what we had, again,” Maria said, still pleading her case, “can… can we go back to being friends at least?”
Bryony sighed and turned her back on Maria, taking a few more steps towards the exit. She looked up at the ceiling and muttered something under her breath. A successful, well-deserved, thoroughly planned out future lay out in front of her, beckoning her, needing her only to take a few final steps out of the room and claim her prize of the nice, safe, respectable graduation gown. Four years of being a proper, respectable, hard-working woman would finally be rewarded with a piece of paper and a handshake. Who knew, perhaps Grant would calm down and finally take her back? Maybe if she asked nicely enough and smiled in the right way…
Then, in the blink of an eye, Bryony jolted as she felt a dam break inside of her. Her lips tingled. She gasped as she felt a wave of emotions and repressed feelings burst over her, stripping away the carefully constructed persona she’d built up for the benefit of others, for the benefit of being respectable. Bryony the exemplary student, Bryony the hard-working intern, Bryony the party-goer who was always fun without ever causing a stir that might unsettle people. She breathed in deeply, and then out, her chest rising and falling as she tried to steady herself. She felt dizzy.
She remembered Grant and how he’d made her feel, how she’d wanted him so much to forgive her for what she had once been, needing his validation, promising to be better in the future. She remembered the breakup argument and how that had made her feel, as he cut down her attempted explanations and made it clear that Bryony simply wasn’t good enough for him, and how she’d accepted those words at face value. And then she remembered the argument with Maria afterwards, how she’d ultimately blamed her for that night and for how she’d tricked Bryony into enjoying it, and how that had made her feel. Finally, she remembered that night the ill-fated video had been made, and how that experiment under the sheets with Maria had made her feel.
“No,” Bryony whispered softly, shaking her head, “I’m sorry but I don’t think we can go back to being friends. Not after” She waved her hands around the room and tried to take in all of the craziness that was happening in one expansive gesture, “_this_.”
****
“Simon Henderson.” The name was called out to a round of polite applause and a beaming young man in a colourful graduation gown strutted across the stage to where a much older man in an even more regal outfit waited with a certificate in hand. The older man fixed a smile on his face for what already seemed like the hundredth time this evening as he shook another now-ex-student’s hand and resumed a position of polite boredom, waiting for his assistant to the side to call out another name. Another name, another stranger he couldn’t recall having seen for the past four years, another bout of applause and another handshake. He tried to stretch his neck a little, trying to shift a sore muscle while still conscious of the fact that he was up on stage in front of an audience of hundreds of families. All of whom were going through the motions of politely acknowledging a bunch of strangers they wouldn’t have been able to identify in a lineup seconds after they’d left the stage, all in readiness for a few moments of manic cheering as a close friend, lover or family member wandered up.
Looking out into the hall, he began to idly wonder if anyone at all was even paying attention to him. He was, after all, an important man – the Vice-President of the University no less – and as the lights in the high ceiling of the auditorium beamed down on him, he felt one of his underlings press the next certificate into his hand. And, he groaned with a barely perceptible sigh, they were only up to the ‘H’s…
“Maria Higgins.” The name rang out through the speakers and the Vice-President turned to face the next graduate. At least it was a woman’s name, so he could hold out hope that she’d be rather attractive and of the type to wear something slinky and revealing under the gown. No one was there. A slight frown creased his forehead. If the student wasn’t present in the building, then the ushers should have removed her name from the list. He hated when this happened and a student’s name was called out and they were a no-show. Made them look like complete amateurs. As he peered into the dark of the off-stage area, he saw a large graduate with unruly black hair and a long beard shrug his shoulders at the head of the line of remaining graduates. The old man arched an eyebrow. Back in his day that wouldn’t have been a “Maria,” but well, this was the twenty-first century he supposed, each to their own.
“Maria. Higgins.” The name rang out again, slower this time as if that would somehow coax out an appearance from someone. The male graduate made no attempt to come onto stage and instead was making some frantic hand gesture that the Vice President couldn’t entirely make out, but that he surmised either meant that the guy in question wasn’t Maria, or that the guy in question was choking on a pretzel. After a few seconds of the shaggy-haired man not collapsing dramatically to the ground, the vice president decided it was more likely to be the former than the latter.
“MARIA. HIGGINS.” The name was called out one final time, exasperation evident in the tone. The vice president’s mouth was beginning to twitch in irritation when suddenly there was shouting from a side corridor in the auditorium near the main stage entrance where the graduates were lined up. Whatever was causing the shouting was also causing consternation amongst the assorted stagehands, and several ushers and staff seemed to drop whatever they were holding in surprise as a flurry of movement erupted from the side corridor and a woman sprinted onto the stage.
The vice president’s jaw dropped to the ground, and the certificate tumbled out of his grasp as a collective gasp went up from around the entire hall. Transfixed, the man watched on stunned, as an auburn-haired fair-skinned goddess dashed across the polished wooden floorboards, her bare feet making no noise whatsoever. On the one hand, his hopes that Maria Higgins would be an attractive woman with an inclination to wear something slinky and revealing under her gown had been technically dashed. On the other hand, that technicality was only on the grounds that Maria Higgins had turned out to be an extremely attractive woman with an apparent inclination to wear absolutely nothing at all.
As the woman got closer, the Vice-President realised – even over the background noise of shocked whispers and amazed laughter – that she was quietly hissing “fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck” to herself under her breath. Maria Higgins had her hands clasped over her naked crotch and breasts for most of the mad dash, although as she hurried over she also occasionally tried to twist her legs to provide some feeble cover, long enough for a hand to hurtle around and try to cover her exposed bottom. With only two hands and at least three major sites of embarrassment to try and protect, Maria was fighting a losing battle.
****
A loud piercing wolf whistle ripped out across the hall as a few catcalls also began to be heard over the amazed murmurings of an audience trying to make sense of what it was seeing. As Maria arrived in front of the older dignitary, he realised that – albeit with his reactions dulled by the unprecedented view he was now being treated to – the woman seemed to be expecting something. Dreamily looking her up and down, he finally noticed her face and felt that the shade of red that tinged her cheeks seemed entirely unnatural compared to the extremely fair complexion she was showing off literally everywhere else on her body. Standing still, she hopped nervously from foot to foot and gave him a pleading look, as she desperately tried to avoid looking out into the sea of faces she knew was mentally – and probably digitally too – recording her humiliating streak for all of eternity.
As the dignitary finally roused himself from his dazed musings on the finer aspects of the student body, he shook his head and wordlessly extended his hand out to give her the certificate. She was, in his view, definitely deserving of some kind of award at least! The woman looked down at the offered hand and tried to frantically point at it without actually using her otherwise occupied arms. He slowly followed her meaning and looked down at his hand, frowning. There was no certificate there. Had she taken it already? Then he clicked and said “Oh!” realising that he dropped it on the stage the moment the naked graduate had arrived and crowded out any other thought or consideration from his mind.
He coughed, and quickly dropped to his knees. Maria did likewise, and as she squatted down, trying to curl herself into a ball, she grabbed the certificate from his grip the moment the Vice-President had retrieved it off the floor.
“Thank you!” Maria squeaked, in an unnaturally high voice as she gave the man a worried smile.
“You’re welcome.” The vice president replied, somehow managing to hit an even higher pitch than Maria. He coughed. “You’re welcome.” He said again, this time wildly over-compensating with a ridiculously low voice.
As Maria hunched over, face red and clasping her certificate against her naked bosom – a certificate that the Vice-President was remembering had only in his hands seconds ago, practically making his hands and her breasts connected in a deeply spiritual way – she shuffled over and whispered something in the man’s ear. A whiff of perfume caught his nose, and he felt dizzy as the sweet aroma sent him swooning again. Then Maria whispered in his ear again, more urgently this time, and he begrudgingly snapped out of his dreams.
He looked at her strangely and then looked out at the audience, in which we could see a swarm of camera flashes and wild gesticulations from an increasingly agitated crowd. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he shrugged, stood up and called out in as loud a voice as he could muster. “Bryony Richmond! Our next… ahh… graduate is…” he paused, looked down at Maria again in confusion even though he only just said the name he was now struggling to recall and tried to focus his attention. Maria squeezed her eyes shut as she crouched helplessly on stage, exposed to countless strangers and peers. He stumbled over the name a third time. “Bryony Richmond!” Still somewhat dazed and unsure of what was going on, he waved a hand inarticulately at the assistant who was dealing with the certificates, who was similarly slack-jawed but had just enough self-control to figure out what was being asked of him. The assistant, eyes flitting between Maria’s impressive figure and the box in front of him, slowly began the task of fumbling through the certificates to look under the ‘R’s.
Another commotion erupted from the side corridor. Stagehands and graduates who had been waiting on the sidelines and who’d had their focus stolen entirely by Maria’s antics now had to contend with another naked woman bursting past them. This one, slightly shorter, blonde-haired and with a rack that made up for being slightly on the smaller side nevertheless defiantly resisted all attempts to cover it up, similarly had a hand placed protectively over her crotch as she dashed bare-foot over the wooden floorboards. Her face was equally red as Maria’s and the rest of her body was equally exposed. Every footstep was punctuated with a very unladylike “shit, shit, shit” from the blonde-haired Amazon.
Bryony arrived in front of the Vice-President, and shared a look of mutual please-let-the-ground-swallow-me-up-now embarrassment with Maria, while the assistant seemed to take an absolute eternity to find her certificate.
A fresh round of cat-calls broke out from the audience, and Bryony and Maria were all too aware that soon cat-calls would turn into attempts at apprehending them. Maria finally stood up next to Bryony, and with a brief and short-lived rush of bravery, the two women nervously looked out into the audience. The bright beams of the stage lights dazzled and almost blinded them, but as they looked out they saw a host of faces registering everything from shocked condemnation, through to broad, winking smirks, and taking in several stops at the realm of leering dads, for whom this ceremony had suddenly and unexpectedly exceeded all hopes. Worst still, some of the faces were obscured by cameras.
Maria groaned and had to forcibly stop herself from sinking back to her knees. Her thighs wobbled from the stress of having to stand up completely naked, with only her hands to protect her modesty. With a swelling sense of resolve though, Maria vowed that if Bryony was going to stand, then so was she.
Finally, the certificate arrived, and the Vice President tried to grab back some sense of decorum by presenting the certificate, albeit with a clearly trembling hand, and calling out in a loud and authoritative voice “Congratulations Dr Prendegast!” No, wait, that didn’t sound right. He furrowed his brows as he tried to run that last sentence again through his mind. Of course! That was his name! He was about to correct himself, however Bryony wasn’t in the mood to wait. Snatching the offered certificate, for a split moment her breasts came into full and unimpeded view as she moved her arm due to unfortunate necessity. His gaze instantly locked in on both nipples with laser-like intensity, and he was once again lost in his own private dream world as the two women suddenly began to make a break for the other end of the stage.
As he reached up a hand to find his jaw and feel if his mouth was still hanging open, he could hazily hear a new commotion breaking out behind him. The audience, who had settled into stunned silence as the women had made a break for it, now erupted again as condemnation, congratulations and animated debates on who had been the hottest broke out in a multitude of arguments and shouted accusations across the entire hall.
The vice president, still staring at the spot where Bryony’s naked breasts had been moments before, absent-mindedly waved a hand for silence, but it was like trying to slap a tidal wave into submission. After a few moments of ineffectual hand gestures, he instead slowly turned, walked back to his seat, and with a deep sigh sunk back into his chair. As a few of the graduates stormed the stage to demand to know when they’d be given their certificate, he instead gave them only a happy, distant, contented smile, the first genuine smile of the evening and one destined to last long into the night.
****
Bursting through the door of their new apartment, the woman formerly known as Bryony Richmond lightly skipped over to the comfortable old couch they recently purchased, and jumped over the back to land next to her auburn-haired flatmate. The woman – who until only recently would have happily answered to the name Maria Higgins – was leafing through the small pile of letters that had appeared in their mailbox this morning. Most of it was junk mail and was being tossed to one side, but there was one envelope, which seemed to contain a small object inside of it, that had been carefully placed on their coffee table.
Excitedly, the recently arrived blonde bombshell began to recount her exploits over the day. “You should have seen me, babe. This hot-shot asshole at the pool hall tried challenging me to a game, and he was so confident he started betting clothes, thinking he could get a proper look at the puppies,” punctuating her rapid-fire talking with an entirely unnecessary fondling of her own breasts, which were currently contained only in the loosest sense by a white tank top with a plunging neckline, “long story short, had him down to his boxers by the time the owner came by and told me none of the regulars wanted to see some guy’s tiny pecker on full display.” She grinned. “Reckon pool-shark is my future career path. What with that new job in IT you’re interviewing for, I think we’ll be set for life.”
She gave the other woman a playful punch on the arm and gave a contented sigh as she looked out the window and took in the bright moonlit night-time skyline of Seattle.
It had been a crazy two months. While it was certainly true that the months after graduation were normally a time of great change for any ex-student, in their case that great change had included not only a move to a new city and a new state, but new names, the discovery that a generously sizeable stipend had been deposited in their new bank accounts, and whole new backstories should anyone get inquisitive about how they’d grown up and where they’d been educated. The lengths to which the mysterious organisation had gone after the game had been surprising and more than a little suspicious. How, for example, could they afford to do this?
Still, that wasn’t their immediate concern right now, and they were settling into a new life. As angry as they had been with each other before and during the game, the shared experience of being naked up on the graduation stage, embarrassed and bereft of any cover, accepting the rewards for four years of hard labour while shocked laughter, cat calls and condemnation had rung in their ears, had somehow brought them even closer together than ever before.
After having descended from the stage, hands clasping certificates and private parts in equal measures, the two women had suddenly burst out into hysterical laughter that hadn’t stopped even while security apprehended and led them away. They’d barely been able to pause from laughing long enough to steal a hurried kiss – their first kiss since the night of that video – before the guards slapped handcuffs on and draped some blankets over their chests and waists.
An uncomfortable night in a cell later, they’d been bailed out, before learning that charges were being mysteriously dropped, and then found themselves disappearing into new lives. Together.
Crazy times indeed.
An envelope was placed in the blonde-haired woman’s lap, and her partner gave her a nudge. “Arrived this morning.”
It was addressed to both of them. She opened the envelope up, and let a small device fall out. Giving it a puzzled look, she picked up the object and turned it over in her hands. A small speaker sat above a button that was protected by a cover. With a shared look, she leaned forward cautiously flipped the protective cover off and prodded at the button. A voice immediately sprang up, a voice that was so familiar to them that they both gasped.
“Good evening ladies.” A crisp, business-like woman’s voice said. It only took three words for them to realise who was speaking.
“Angelica!” They both exclaimed. Bewildered, they gave each other confused shrugs as they tried to make sense of why they were now hearing from her again, while the older woman went through the motions of congratulating them on their performances in the game and how they’d adapted to their new lives so quickly.
“W… what do you think she wants, Bree?”
Bree Carson, curling her blonde hair absent-mindedly in one hand while the instigator of their recent life-changing humiliation made an unexpected entrance into their new lives, looked at her partner and then gave a determined smile. Taking her hand, she gave an encouraging squeeze and fixed her with a reassuring look. “I don’t know Monica, but whatever it is, as long as we’re together, I know we’re going to be okay.”
Monica Fairchild returned the smile, interlocked her fingers with Bree’s and squeezed back. Shuffling closer in, she mouthed “love you” at Bree. Bree winked and gave her a wolfish grin. “Love you too.” she mouthed back.
As Bree and Monica turned their attention back to the device, Angelica Highsmith was smoothly transitioning from congratulating the two women and was now moving on to business.
“You see ladies, in truth, I represent an organisation that is always on the lookout for women with exceptional talent, exceptional resolve, and truly extraordinary resilience. And I rather think we’ve been unexpectedly blessed to discover not just one, but two such remarkable women. So I have a proposition that I think you’ll both find… stimulating.”
There was a brief pause in the recording. Bree and Monica leaned in, Monica resting her chin lightly on Bree’s shoulder. Seemingly sensing that she had ensnared her audience, Angelica’s voice spoke again. “Bree Carson. Monica Fairchild. Welcome to the Agency!”
****
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