It was almost noon Thursday before Angela finally got back online. It would have been even longer if she hadn't flirted with the tech support rep. She'd promised to send him a picture as soon as she got connected. He was probably some puffy cheeseburger-and-fries dork who never wore anything but tech-company giveaway T-shirts and khakis. Yuck.
"Downloading 1 of 279 messages..."
Great. That was going to take a while. She started work at two.
Angela went to the kitchen for a bite to eat. When she returned, her screen was full of mail. The top one was from mail_admin -- her mailbox was full and the mail server would reject any new messages until she cleared some space. It was dated last night. The rest of the messages were from Josh, all of them titled things like Pics, Links, Ideas, More Ideas, Like This, Hot!... that creep had filled up her mailbox! She hoped Scott hadn't been trying to send her something only to have it bounce...
Scrolling to the bottom, Angela did find a week-old message from Scott, along with a half-dozen spam messages that didn't look much different from Josh's deluge. She deleted the spam, then opened Scott's message:
Hey sweetie!
Sorry I had to cut our last chat short. My boss called and wanted an update. I had a hard time concentrating, all I could do was think about you.
The bad news is they're sending me back to Taiwan. For a whole week. I'll try to email you from there but access there is so expensive until I get the satellite up I can't promise anything. And then it's off to New Delhi and Cairo to set up the systems for our offices there. Still no progress on getting me an assistant -- they hired one but it turned out he lied on his resume. I told them at this point I didn't care, any warm body would do, but they already let him go, and by that time the next four choices had all found jobs elsewhere, so we get to start all over again!
The good news is on the return trip I've arranged an overnight stop to see you! I thought it would never happen, but I finally told my boss I had to have a little downtime in the States before I forgot where I came from. It's not exactly the weekend off I'd hoped for, but it's a start. I'll email you later with the details. I can't wait to see the beautiful lady I've been neglecting for so long and make up for lost time.
Hugs and kisses and other things (!), Scott
At least he wasn't harping on the gems again. She hoped his "details" hadn't been lost because of Josh. What was all this junk Josh'd sent her, anyway? They didn't have attachments...
She opened the first one he'd sent, titled "Outfit ideas:"
Here's a few links to pictures of stuff I found. I thought Maybe it would give you some Ideas about what to wear when we Get Together Friday -- I want us to both be comfortable and both have a GOOD TIME!! We've got a lot of Catching Up to do! Can't wait to see you sexy! /wink/ JOSH
There were a dozen long URLs to different websites that started with things like vogue and cosmopolitan.com and models.net and fashionable.com. Angela clicked on the first one. She recognized the picture; she'd seen it in one of the fashion magazines they kept at work. The model wore a sharp-looking bright-red blazer buttoned at the waist and a matching short tight skirt. Underneath she wore a white fishnet bodysuit. Alluring but still tasteful. The other photos were similar -- each of them provocative, but short of trashy.
As she opened each additional message and followed the URLs they contained, the images linked gradually became more explicit -- a shadow of a nipple here, an outline of "camel toe" there, a skosh of cheek below the hem here, a half-exposed breast there. And the expressions on the models' faces went from happy or composed or mysterious to suggestive or sultry or surprised. The progression was so gradual over so many pictures that it wasn't until Angela looked away for a moment when she thought she heard her mom's car and then looked back that she realized that she was surfing carefully-selected clothing-fetish pornography.
Angela gasped at the image before her:
Sheer black stockings, the kind with a seam up the back. The girl bent over and turned, one hand tracing up the back of her calf, the other perched on her hip, as if caught checking a mirror to make sure her seams were straight. Bright fire-truck dayglow green satin minidress poured over her curves, the rucked-up hem failing to conceal her black sheer panties, the off-shoulders top failing to contain her breasts, thrust out by the strange-yet-natural contortion of her pose. Swollen labia clearly visible, inviting penetration right through the gossamer material; hard nipples begging to be sucked and pinched. Through wayward strands of blue-black hair, dark brown eyes looking straight into the camera, impossible to turn away from, the girl's shocked and embarassed reaction to the camera's discovery of her "unintentional" exposure betrayed by a hint of glee.
Angela was repulsed and yet fascinated. Was this how Josh saw her? As he wanted to see her? As he *expected* to see her?
She noticed her heart was pounding and her breathing quick. She couldn't take any more of this... torture... Her mouse pointer hovered over the web browser's "close" button. But she noticed the model's shoes. Tall pointed clear plastic heels dangling from the blonde's toes by their black mesh straps, they reminded her of Sapphire's shoes.
She couldn't stop now. Josh had sent her all this porn for a reason, and it was probably more than just imagining her recoiling in demure shame. She was expected to learn from it. Angela knew Josh had a sadistic streak a mile wide, and there was no way she was getting her shoes back if she didn't follow him through every sexual minefield he laid and step on as many mines as she could find.
With a sigh of resignation (and of breathing regulation), Angela opened the next email and clicked on the next link.
The images blurred before her now as she scanned through them while attempting clinical detachment, but she spotted the themes well enough, certain composite images burning with persistence in her mind's eye.
...manicured fingernails dipped between the folds of split-crotch panties to nestle in naked glistening nether lips...
...mouths agape and brows furrowed in expressions of tortured ecstasy, their perfect pouty lips painted impossible shades of red or pink, finger glistening with saliva as it beckons the tongue, eyes plucked and lashed and lined and shadowed, hollow cheeks flushed with passionate rouge...
...improbable, impractical elaborations of satin and lace and chiffon intertwining and capturing, caressing and exposing flawless breasts and buttocks grazed by delicate feminine fingers...
...delicate insubstantial constructions captured askew, clasps unclasped, buttons unbuttoned, zippers unzipped, laces unlaced, snaps unsnapped, straps astray, revealing all their garments purportedly protect, accompanied by arousing expressions of worry or surprise or frustration...
...series of images progressively stripping reluctantly-willing women of their artful outfits, their need rising as their resistance falls as their clothing succombs to the ravages of invisible hands, peeling or plucking or penetrating one article and one body part at a time, simultaneously dissolving fabric and reserve...
...skirts of plastic, blouses and bodysuits of fishnet, bras and panties of gauze, vestigal charicatures of legitimate articles of clothing serving as enticing veils, revealing what they pretend to obscure...
...delightfully delicate decorations adorning deliciously dainty damsels in distress...
...helpless submissions to loosely-knotted bonds of maribou, lace, or surrendered stockings...
...inhibitions and accoutrements lost as one...
...expressions of embarassment invariably giving way to pleas of passion...
...everything see-through, split open, stretched aside, or roughly ripped off...
...fingers grazing over, rubbing on, slipping in...
...skimpy panties pulled aside, untied, dangled from spike heels, hugging thighs, or around the ankles...
...fishnet holed, bodices ripped, stockings run, panties torn, bras burst, shoes lost...
...snapping, tearing, ripping, shredding, the imagined audible effects strangely accelerating arousal...
...chests thrust outward, buttocks thrust backward, legs laid outward, arms stretched upward, toes pointed, fingers curled, hair haloed, lips pouted, eyelids fluttered...
...coming to climax as the last shred of clothing cedes the last inkling of unwillingness, the glistening dew of excitement mixing with the sweet nectar of passion...
...nothing and everything out of proportion: clothes too tight or too loose, too large or too small; breasts too big, lips too full, legs too long, eyes too blue, labia too lubed, pussies too pink, nipples too taught, skin too smooth, expressions too erotic, everything fitting perfectly...
No one ever looked like that, dressed like that, or acted like that... unless they were being paid to.
Why did every guy she met have to turn out to be a freakazoid?
As she pondered the question, her chat monitor alarm rang. Scott was online!
Scott8412: Do you still have the stones?
(Talk about abrupt!)
Halo1502: nice 2cu2... /roll eyes/ Scott8412: I'm sorry. I've had a rough day. How are you? Halo1502: fine i guess. sorry i havnt been online my computer broke! :-( Scott8412: Bummer. When can I see you?
(Huh? Shouldn't she be asking him? Wasn't he the one with the busy schedule? Maybe he sent another email and it bounced or something.)
Halo1502: i got your mail from last week but it didnt say when u were coming out. did you send more mail? my box was full Scott8412: I sent another message yesterday. I will be in town on Tuesday.
(Yesterday? But Josh didn't fill my mailbox until late last night... and what was with the perfect capitalization and spelling all of a sudden?)
Scott8412: Where do you want to meet?
(Waitasec. For weeks, no, months, Angela had been looking forward to meeting Scott. Well, if not looking forward to it at least thinking about it. Ever since he sent her the sapphires things had been... weird. Weird didn't begin to describe it, but it was the best she could do. But still in all that time Scott had always put her off, never picking a date that was less than a week away, as if giving himself and her time to think about it, and now suddenly it was Tuesday.)
Halo1502: what about 1 of the places u picked b4?
(Early on Scott had spun elaborate yarns about where they would meet face-to-face for the first time. In the executive lounge at the airport, in the swanky bar at the Regency Hotel downtown, at a table in the spinning restaurant atop the Pulsar building, in a private box at the opera -- a half-dozen scenarios, all of them adult and sophisticated and classy.)
Scott8412: Any one of them would be great. I don't care where we meet as long as you have the stones. You pick, whatever's most comfortable for you. It's your turf.
(Rough day indeed, he wasn't even flirting, just all business. Totally unlike Scott. Unless he'd just been using her.)
Halo1502: about that... Scott8412: About what?
(Long pause... this was it. This was when the truth would have to come out, when Scott would reveal the kind of guy he really was, when he'd show her what it was really all about.)
Scott8412: You still there? Halo1502: yea... Halo1502: just thinking about how to tell u.. i dont want u to get madd at me Scott8412: What's wrong? Halo1502: about the stones... Scott8412: What happened? Scott8412: Where are they? Scott8412: You didn't lose them did you??
(Ohh shit. Think girl! If he really knows about the stones you know he's got to want them back, they have to be worth, well, she couldn't even imagine what. But if he really knows why did he send them to her, a girl he didn't even know? Angela's heart pounded and her chest grew tight...)
Halo1502: i pawned them.
(Pause.)
Scott8412: oh shit Halo1502: im sorry, but i had too Scott8412: fuck Halo1502: the car broke down, mom couldnt get to work. it was my fault i took it without asking and Scott8412: oh my god Halo1502: all sudden it started making this noize and just conkedd out... Scott8412: Why didn't you ask me, I could have helped you. Halo1502: i had no choice i"M Sorrry Scott8412: Those stones are priceless Halo1502: i couldnt reach u and we couldent waitt Scott8412: I mean they're very important Halo1502: ill try to get them back as soon as i can get the $ and go back their to Scott8412: I mean they're a family heirloom. Didn't I tell you about them? Halo1502: buy them back if their not gone already Halo1502: important how Scott8412: Where did you pawn them? Halo1502: no u just said dont wear them until icu Scott8412: ICU what? Halo1502: i dont remember the name Halo1502: i see u Scott8412: Do you have the ticket? Halo1502: ticket? Scott8412: Receipt, whatever. I need you to find the name right now. Halo1502: i dont remember
(Angela waited, as if she was looking for the receipt.)
Scott8412: Did you find it? Halo1502: nope Scott8412: Look in the phone book under pawn shops, you should recognize the name
(This wasn't working...)
Scott8412: ARe you looking? Halo1502: i dont see it Scott8412: THINK!!! Halo1502: why r u pushing me so hard?? its hard to think with u being so pushy Halo1502: its like u dont even care about me just the saphires... isaid i was sorry and ill Halo1502: try to make it up too you Scott8412: You have no idea what you've done. Scott8412: I have to get those stones back. Halo1502: but u gave them 2 me! i dident kno u were goin to ask for them back Halo1502: ill try to get them back Scott8412: Give me something to go on! Just tell me where and I'll find them. If those stones Scott8412: fall into the wrong hands...
(He was giving her chills...)
Halo1502: am i in danger? Scott8412: If I don't get the stones soon, yes.
(Oh god. Scott knew everything about her, where she'd gone to school, where her mom worked, where she lived (well, almost)... Why did Scott even give her the stones in the first place? Did he steal them? Was he going to come after her now? And who else?)
Scott8412: At least tell me what city you pawned them in. I'll check all the shops. Halo1502: what city??
(Why would she pawn them in some other city? What was wrong with Scott? Not only was he being a real jerk about the whole thing, he was acting like he didn't even know her any more. She was beginning to think the feeling was mutual.)
Halo1502: your scaring me!
Scott8412: I'm sorry, but other people are looking for those stones too. Very bad people.
(Angela's heart pumped frantically; she had trouble breathing. This was about as bad as it could get.)
Halo1502: but i dont have them anymore Scott8412: They don't know that. Halo1502: cant u tell them? Scott8412: I don't know that either. Like they'd listen to me anyway.
(Now she *really* needed to get those stones back from Josh. And maybe look for the others again. Maybe they'd turn up in a pawn shop or something; she didn't know, but she had to try... and she had to be ready for when these "very bad people" came looking for her... oh no, would they have special powers too?)
Scott8412: I need you to help me get them back. Do you remember the street?
(Angela's mind was reeling... Got to focus...)
Halo1502: the streets were so confusing i went to a few places i dont remember Scott8412: Maybe I should come and help you remember.
(Her heart skipped a beat. Was that a threat? It was a threat, wasn't it? Was it? Oh God...)
***Halo1502 has left the channel
Panicked, Angela had unplugged her computer. Who was Scott really? How'd he get the sapphires? Why had he sent them to her? Was he just using her to smuggle them or hold them? Was she somehow bait?
Oh Angela, that was stupid, you shouldn't have disconnected, now maybe he's coming to get you...
She had to get out of the house. She had to get Sapphire's shoes back. She had to go to work.
Fuck!
Andrew Dean leaped up from the hotel desk chair, furious. His steel-toed boot smashed into the plastic wastebasket next to the desk, destroying it in an explosion of brittle plastic shards; the bottom of the receptacle cartwheeled and wobbled drunkenly across the room. He nearly threw the cell phone at the ugly abstract painting above the bed, but regained control after an angry wind-up. That would have been his third phone; he didn't want to pick up a reputation for smashing cell phones. He held it up to his ear.
"Tell me you got something."
Andrew's lip quivered as he heard the tech stumble through a jargonesque response.
"What do you mean she's connected through an anonymous server?" Pause. "So call 'em up; we can have a warrant in fifteen." Pause. "So call *them*." Pause. "Don't give me that random hop shit, they all say that, but they're all egomaniac control freaks. Some motherfucker's got a log, find him." Pause. Andrew sucked in air through clenched teeth. "What the fuck is a civilian doing with that technology? That shit's not even supposed to exist outside the lab." Pause. Andrew turned and looked at the nightstand, the alarm clock blaring out 2:15 in six-inch-high red LED numerals. "Listen, does your room have an alarm clock? Yeah, on the nightstand. Is it kind of big, with huge red numbers on it? Yeah? Good. If you say 'get with the times' one more time I'm going to shove that clock so far up your ass you'll hit the snooze bar when you brush your teeth." Pause. "Fine. Can you get a fix if we get her online again." Pause. "Fuck." Pause. "No shit, Sherlock." He hit the END key on the phone and dropped it on the bed.
Fuck!
His tech was right; she was a crafty one. Nothing like the others. She knew what she was doing.
Not that he'd handled it particularly delicately anyway. Jumping in blind like that... he completely tipped his hand. Totally amateur.
Still. She pawned them? Right.
She was just fucking with him. If 'she' even existed at all. The scared girl routine was a bit much.
But bullshit or not, he had to go through the motions and have the pawn shop angle checked out, if he could somehow even get the city nailed down. He had nothing else. This was just Eric's way of testing him. Let yourself be led around by the nose, hoping to capitalize on a screwup, but mostly busting your ass and looking stupid. Challenge the student to become the master yin-yang psychobabble. The guy probably hadn't even turned at all and this was just a blind training op. And that would be fine, except...
Fuck!
Andrew'd spent three weeks wining and dining that model Daneca -- Andrew's dick twitched just thinking about her -- and just as he was about to seal the deal the Director calls him up to run the domestic side of a renegade recovery. Of Andrew's own trainer. Lame. Lame lame lame! But still, that would be fine, except...
Fuck!
He hadn't gotten any in over a year, at least not without paying for it, and that just wasn't the same. He hadn't gotten any since Ginger'd dumped him. For Eric. The fucker did it just to prove a point. Don't get involved. It's not healthy. Bullshit. Just a cover for "don't show up your boss by getting better pussy more often than him." It wasn't enough that Eric got all the foreign pussy, he had to have dibs on all the domestic pussy too. But it wasn't even about that. The four years of grunt support work Andrew did back at the office to keep Eric's ass out of the fire in the field wasn't good enough. Eric had to pick and pick and pick until he found something to break through Andrew's cool. It pissed Eric off that Andrew never lost his cool. Whatever Eric's natural talent for getting out of fucked-up situations, he had the occasional wild moment where his judgement lapsed and his baser instincts got the better of him, and Eric knew it was only a matter of time before Andrew got the call to take the field and Eric was relegated to support work. Eric saw to it that the Ginger thing got blown way out of proportion and it kept Andrew on the bench for a year, but if Eric thought Andrew was going to let this latest stunt be twisted against him he was sorely mistaken.
Well, he'd lost his cool now. Now he was on.
Andrew picked up the cell phone. "I'm going to check something out, if you need me I'm on the cell."
The worked motor of his '96 Impala SS rumbling to life, he slapped the car into gear and skidded out of the lot toward the nearest curvy road. Wherever this bimbo turned out to be, he'd drive there. He needed his ride and his tunes to stay focused. He hit the button for the CD player, which picked up where it'd left off...
I worked hard, to give you all the things that you need,
And almost anything that you see.
I spent a lifetime working on you,
And you won't even talk to me.
Can't you see?
Why don't you look at me?
It's not your right to be so much my enemy.
"Hey, mom. Sorry I'm calling so late."
"That's okay, dear, I just got home a few minutes ago. I had to work a double shift, Trina called in sick."
"Gosh, I'm sorry mom."
"No, it's okay, I can use the money. Though now I could use some sleep. Are you coming home honey?"
"In a little while, I've got some things to wrap up here first. Hey, can you check outside and see if there's anyone out there?"
"What? Why? Who would be out there?"
"Well, this guy I know from school, he was kinda weird, well I saw him yesterday and he asked me out and I told him I had to work and he said he'd meet me for coffee afterward and I go 'well I'll be working pretty late' and he goes 'well that's okay, I'm a night owl' or something like that so I go 'well I'm pretty tired after work' and he goes 'well I'll meet you at your house after work and we'll see how you feel then ok' and I tell him thanks but I really shouldn't and he got this hurt look but kind of a weird look so I thought he might be hanging around outside and I just kinda wanted to prepare myself mentally if he was and ask you if you could leave the TV on in the living room like you were still up or something."
"Okay..." Angela's mom answered in a more-than-I-wanted-to-know but concerned tone. "No honey, I don't see anybody out there."
"Are you sure?"
"Hang on." Angela heard the front door open and slippers shuffling on cement. Then they shuffled back and the door closed. "Not a soul out there. The only cars on the street belong to the neighbors. I think you're safe, honey."
"Okay, thanks mom. Could you leave the TV on just in case? You don't need to wait up or anything, it's not like this guy's a psycho rapist or anything, he's just a little weird."
"No problem, honey. Why don't you call me when you're coming home anyway, just to make me feel better."
"Okay, sure. Thanks again mom. Love you."
"Love you too, sweety."
Whew. At least Scott wasn't hanging out in front of her house. She felt a little better.
12:45am. She was running out of time!
Angela looked across the layout table at the progression of discarded ideas. She just didn't yet have the sewing skill to make any of them work. It didn't help that she kept improvising changes, trying to meld 60s-wholesome-housewife McCall's patterns with the raciest images from fashion magazines. And she was nearing the bottom of the returned-fabric bin. She already had a sizeable advance of at-cost supplies against her paycheck and could ill afford to rack up more debt by pulling from good stock, especially since she still had a Sapphire costume to fashion once she got her shoes back.
A progression of failed outfits littered the table, each with a not-quite-fixable flaw. The perfect column dress made from a treated polyester-rayon that made her skin burn and itch as soon as she tried it on; the white see-through blouse that was so tight it ripped up the middle when she inhaled; the skirt she couldn't finish because she ran out of matching material; the fishnet bodysuit whose seams kept unraveling. As the leftover cuts of fabric got smaller, her hopes of making something that both appealed to Josh's twisted sense of fashion and could actually be worn got dimmer.
Suddenly the room went dark. The timer for the overheads had clicked off again. Employees were always forgetting to turn off the lights in the back room, so they'd installed a rotary timer switch. Guided by the dim light of the desk lamp in the corner, Angela shuffled across the room. This was the ninth? tenth? time she'd had to do this and it was getting tiresome. She spun the switch all the way around to the half-hour maximum. But she turned it too hard; the knob twisted off in her hands, and the timer spring made a pop! sound. Oh, this was just great. Now she would have to work by the desk light alone. She dragged the desk toward the work table and bent the shade to point more light on the table; it would have to do.
Now, if she could just find enough matching fabric to put something together...
The bolt sat upright in the New Fabrics! bin. A satin-plus glossy sheen emanated from the experimental microfiber weave. "Better than silk!" the tag stapled to the bolt's end declared. Far cheaper to make, anyway, though that was just barely reflected in the price. Sent to this store to appeal to the significant Asian and Indian population market research said would embrace the new material.
Five yards of the emerald green gloss left the bolt, bought by a squishy-looking Chinese bargain-hunter who'd switched price tags with clearance polyester on Miss-It Marge's shift. Smashed into a suffocating plastic bag, peering down at puffy beige feet squeezed into lazy wooden flipflops, as ugly as they were uncomfortable, shhclop-shhclopping along the cracked asphalt parking lot.
A week later, yanked out of the bag, unwadded and folded and snapped to a stream of Mandarin cursewords, dunked in hot water and thrown over the dusty shower curtain rod. Next day, still wrinkled, dunked again and tossed in a clothes dryer to a new stream of Mandarin sailor-talk, then pulled out just as its tiny fibers were on the verge of melting. A third cut away, two thirds harshly wrapped around a rough wooden plank and stored in the garage next to the dryer vent. The lucky third patterned and cut by rusty fabric shears, tortured by an industrial-strength fat stubby needle and coarse bargain thread, manhandled by pudgy nicotine-stained fingers through an angry Singer until it resembled a Chinese dress.
The next day, stretched to the limit over the squat bulging body still denying the evidence of twenty years of too much fried noodles and not enough exercise, accompanied by a continuous chorus of Mandarin swearing. Immediate perspiration brought with it an unsavory cocktail of cigarette smoke and unsoaped skin as marshmallow toes jammed into brand-new Payless flats. Bulges beat back control-top pantyhose to assault the seaweed-stained synthetic skin struggling to stay together as the fat ass slammed down onto the pockmarked prickly pleather of the aftermarket seat cover.
The Chrysler Cordoba had barely lurched up behind the dingy Dine-In Or Take-Out cookery when the door sprang open, rudely crashing into the adjacent Jaguar. Cottage-cheese thighs slid off the seat. The baked-brittle abused weave gave up its green ghost, sacrificing itself to the escape of millions of fat cells through the footlong split up the back. Epithets anew spewed forth from the overweight order-taker's mouth as pale sausage-digits struggled to reach the site of the damage. Furious at the fabric's failure, the flatulent fat ass flopped back into the seat cushion, the Chrysler's long-dead shock absorbers unable to end the automobile's oscillations, the rusted chrome door edge trim raking up and down through the Jaguar's paint. Door slammed, shifter jammed into gear, the Cordoba lurched back out of the lot and barged for home and an unplanned costume change.
The morning after, the unused two-thirds of mishandled microfiber, exhausted by repeated submission to hot dryer exhaust and clammy caustic garage air, found itself violently extracted from its makeshift bolt board, threads popping all over as they yielded to the sharp knives of the unfinished lumber's rough-hewn surface. Wadded back into a plastic bag, then dumped onto the store counter as its sweaty tormenter recounted her humilation at the hands of malfeasant manufacture and spun yarns of an unwashed unused unspoiled state. One final fracas of foreign foulmouthedness at the failed insistence of a cash refund in place of policy's store credit and the misunderstood material's buyer stormed out.
Gentle young hands folded the fabric with care before depositing it in the bottom of the just-emptied returns bin in the store room.