Dress Off 04: The Rescue of Tess

[This is a direct sequel to Dress Off 3. Special Agent Tess Trueheart, captured just before the start of our previous story, is still the unwilling guest of her arch-nemesis, Harrington. Special Agent Stacey Shackleton and Agent Erin Masterton are leading a rescue mission, but now find themselves naked in the middle of a cold Vancouver night, and at the mercy of an unseen tour guide. At stake may be the very future of the secret spy organisation known simply as Decider Enterprises.]

Tanya Munro shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and tried to focus her attention on the legal document in front of her. Beside her, sitting stiffly in a chair and making a point of ignoring Tanya's presence, the prim and proper Sarah Lowell was experiencing similar difficulties.

Tanya waved a hand vaguely over a couple of clauses, and then looked up at the woman reclining comfortably in another chair before them.

"This, this seems..." Tanya started, before trailing off and looking back at the contract with conflict etched on her face.

"Final?" the woman smoothly said, completing Tanya's sentence for her. The woman, who looked to be in her late thirties, carried herself with a calm, composed confidence. She exuded a level professionalism and self-control that was complemented perfectly by a perfectly tailored business suit, and a clearly expensive watch that she now made a show of checking.

"This little feud," the woman continued, indicating Tanya and Sarah with open palms and a thin smile, "this little conflict, it is so destructive wouldn't you agree? It can destroy both of you, or just one of you."

Tanya glanced sideways at Sarah, who was studiously trying to stare at the woman talking. Tanya couldn't tell if Sarah was less nervous or more nervous than she was about what was being proposed. She fancied for a moment that she saw an involuntary twitch in Sarah's eyes, and just for a fleeting second Sarah seemed to steal a look at Tanya before returning her eyes to front and center.

"Let's focus on what we all agree on." the woman said, putting her hands now on her lap and leaning forward slightly, "I think we can all agree that each of you feels aggrieved for what you each perceive to be past injustices. We offer a solution that I think we all agree will put bring a note of finality to your personal conflict. Not only that, but to the winner we also offer a lucrative, fulfilling, jet-setting job opportunity that any sane woman would jump at the opportunity to have. As well as that, can either of you look me in the face and say that they wouldn't want the other to be the loser in our little proposition? There is literally no downside to this, unless of course you lose." The woman leaned back at this point and looked expectantly at the contracts nestled into Sarah and Tanya's laps.

Tanya was suddenly very conscious of the sensation of the pen resting in her right hand, and she would have sworn that at that exact moment it felt like the pen became extraordinarily heavy in her grasp. Only half looking at the contract, she started to sign her name in a jerky, almost involuntary motion, before finally throwing the pen on to a nearby table and stiffly extending her arm out, the contract firmly gripped in her hand. The woman leaned forward slowly, a bemused smile gracing her perfect features, and she gently reached out and took hold of the contract. For a few seconds, both Tanya and the woman held on to the contract, the woman making direct eye contact with Tanya, before Tanya faltered first. Looking away, Tanya let go of the contract, and took a couple of deep breaths.

The woman cast a brief glance at the signature to satisfy herself that all was in order, and then reached out to take the other copy that was now being proffered by a similarly conflicted Sarah.

"Excellent ladies. I look forward to working with the winner of our little wager, and I trust that whoever may be the unfortunate loser honours the spirit of the endeavour."

Tanya looked up at the ceiling, as a dozen different voices scrambled for attention at the front of her mind. Total, complete humiliation. That's what faced the loser. Left to pick up the pieces, left to get over the fact that her mortal enemy now had an infinitely more exciting, more lucrative life to enjoy. Sarah deserved that humiliating fate, didn't she? Tanya looked at the red-headed, fidgeting woman that she'd known for half her life, staring down at the carpet, wide-eyed and unblinking. The bitch deserved it, right?

********

Sarah Lowell half-ran, half-walked through the campus, her heart racing at a million miles an hour. She desperately spun the latest clue around in her mind, trying to find some angle that she hadn't explored yet, trying to focus with all her willpower on solving that clue rather than worrying about the state of her clothing. Her track pants were long since gone, and for the past twenty minutes she'd been sporting a rather inappropriate pair of skin-tight bright yellow hot pants. Normally that would have been a more than sufficient source of embarrassment for Sarah, even allowing for the fact it was the weekend and the campus wasn't at it's busiest. Today however, any discomfort from the visibility of her well-toned backside was well and truly taking a back seat to the ongoing show her athletic, perfectly proportioned chest was putting on. The discrete white t-shirt she'd started the afternoon with had - two missed clues ago - mischievously revealed a transparent rectangular viewing window in the material that fitted perfectly across her breasts. For a short while, there was at least the comfort that her yellow brassiere had the appearance of a fairly decent sports bra that seemed more functional than lewd. That tiny blessing had lasted until about 5 minutes ago, when the cursed earpiece had broken the silence of her dash down a deserted corridor in the Earth Sciences building. The earpiece had smugly informed her of Tanya's discovery of the next clue, and she hadn't even processed this new piece of unwelcome information when she began to feel the brassiere reforming and remodelling itself around her boobs.

The bra had pushed her breasts together and upwards, and the once solidly yellow material had contracted and become translucent, so that her cleavage and nipples were now partly visible through the viewing window in her t-shirt. Even a conservatively dressed Sarah represented too great a challenge for some men when it came to not-staring-slack-jawed-at-her-rack when she walked into a room. The current state of her chest pretty much ensured that she could have been shooting laser beams out of her eye sockets and none of the male staff or students would have been any the wiser.

Down three clues to two, Sarah knew that Tanya would at least be feeling some discomfort from exposing her ass to the faculty and fellow students. Sarah just hoped that the discomfort would nag at Tanya enough to delay her from realising that the recreation centre building was the next pit stop. At least she had that on her side. At least she knew where this was now all leading too.

Sarah ran on through a courtyard, and disappeared down a path, startling a couple of engineering students who'd been in the middle of an animated discussion.

"What..." said one of the students to the other a good two minutes after the yellow-clad backside of Sarah Lowell had receded into the distance, "... what the hell were we talking about again?"

*******

Tanya Munro stood outside the University pool at the recreation centre and pointedly ignored the open-mouthed gawping that numerous swim meet audience members had treated her to. She'd been staring, mute and unmoving, out through the clear glass doors at the entrance and out on to the courtyard beyond. She couldn't have told anyone whether she'd been there for thirty seconds or thirty minutes, but she noticeably inhaled deeply when a flash of yellow appeared suddenly in the distance. Holding the intake of breath for a few more moments, she then slowly exhaled, rubbed a hand through her long blonde hair, and turned on her heels, striding quickly towards a side corridor of the main entrance hall. She seemingly paused at the door to a storage room, and rested her head on the door frame before glancing back towards the main entrance with a conflicted expression of victory and regret. As a pair yellow hot pants ran into the building, worn by the red-headed, red-faced beauty she'd known simply as "the hated bitch" for too long, Tanya entered the storage room and waited.

*******

Sarah Lowell stood in shock at the open entrance to the discrete storage room, and looked in on the smiling face of the raven-haired woman in the business suit, and the unreadable face of her despised foe.

"Sarah, come on in, please do." the woman said, and took Sarah's unresisting arm. Half dragging her into the room, the woman positioned Sarah in the middle of the room and made a quick show of smoothing out imaginary wrinkles in Sarah's now skin-tight clothing. Sarah didn't protest the woman running her hands over the torso, but instead looked silently at Tanya.

"Sarah." the woman continued, taking Sarah's chin and guiding her head so they made close eye contact. "Sarah, as you know, this game is about finality, and I do so fear that merely jogging through the campus on a semi-deserted afternoon in that modest ensemble may just feel slightly anti-climatic. So, I've prepared a little something that I think you'll both agree lives up to this game's billing." The woman smiled again, although there was absolutely no warmth to the expression.

Sarah shrugged almost imperceptibly, and went back to looking at a distracted-looked Tanya.

"As you are both fully aware, this esteemed institution is celebrating a meet for it's famed swimmers, and I dare say a decent section of the staff and students are in attendance. In fact, in about ninety minutes this fine University will unveil a glittering monument to it's swimmers success in recent state competitions, and we all have the privilege of being with that monument right now."

The woman turned and walked over to a two meter high object that sat on wheels and was covered completely by heavy black sheet that appeared to have a pull cloth on the side.

"I believe we have around a hour before some over-paid, minimum wage employees come and wheel this impressive exhibit over for the grand unveiling at the end of the meet." At this point the woman paused, as if a sudden thought had occurred to her, and she raised up a finger to correct herself. "Except of course those unfortunate underlings are going to wheel away entirely the wrong exhibit."

As her final words caught Sarah's attention, the woman yanked the pull cord and the black sheet fell gracefully to the ground. What the sheet revealed was no ordinary monument to a swim team's modest success, but rather a shining, silver x-frame with cuffs at each of the four corners. Between the two bottom corners, the small metal figure of a free-style swimmer - just less than half the height of the frame - stretched upwards, as if swimming against gravity and escaping the water. As Sarah's dazed eyes tried to take in what she was seeing, something at the back of her mind couldn't help noticing that the leading arm of the swimmer was outstretched enough that the finger tips weren't too far away from the middle of the X.

"Sarah, I want to thank you, deeply and sincerely." the woman said, fondly running one hand over the metal of the X frame, and then casually walking over to the vanquished red-head. "I came to this city to find someone with the steel in their heart, the ruthlessness of spirit, and purpose of mind to warrant being part of my organisation. Today you helped me find that person."

Looking over at Tanya, the woman held out a beckoning hand.

"Tanya, you are one small act away from having the revenge you desire, and the future you deserve. You'll find in my handbag a small amount of chloroform and a ball gag. If you'll be so kind as to fetch them, you have a final decision to make."

The woman was suddenly behind Sarah and firmly holding both her arms behind her back before Sarah's mind could tell her body of what was likely to happen next.

"The decision is simple. Show no mercy to our dear Sarah here, and prove to me once and for all that you have the stomach for what I have to offer you!"

Tanya looked at the handbag, and found herself reaching into it to extract the requested items. She stared at them in her hands, and almost laughed out loud at the fact that this was the first time she'd ever seen such things in real life. Looking at a suddenly panicking Sarah, and then at the woman, and finally at the X-frame, she closed her eyes but couldn't block out the sight of herself being restrained by the woman with the black hair, while Sarah stood looking on.

"So." Tanya said, slowly, deliberately, as if testing out each syllable thoroughly before committing to the next. "So, we knock her out, gag her, strip her, cuff her to this..." Tanya gestured at the X frame, "... thing, put the sheet back, and... and let me guess. That ever so conveniently placed hand slots right into her pussy."

The woman nodded her head once in acknowledgement, and Sarah's eyes were now as wide as dinner plates.

"... and so after all that, we leave Sarah to be unveiled to an unsuspecting audience, and we go about our merry business while Sarah lives the rest of her life as 'that slut who showed it all at the swim meet'".

"What?!" Sarah exclaimed, finally finding her voice, "Are you guys insane?! I'll call the police, this wasn't in the contract!"

"My dear," the woman interrupted, "you most certainly should read the fine print. However even so, I think the big picture problem for you is not that the contract may or may not allow it, but that the contract is a fictitious piece of complete bullshit." The woman looked sharply at Tanya. "Chloroform. Now."

Tanya absent-mindedly held a rag soaked in chloroform and looked at the two ladies in front of her.

"What's your name? I don't know your name."

The woman looked back for a second at Tanya before curtly replying. "For the purposes of tonight, call me Harrington."

Tanya nodded. "Harrington" she repeated. "Well you know Harrington, you're certainly right about Sarah being a conniving bitch." Tanya walked towards Sarah with a slow, measured step. She looked down at the chloroformed rag in her hand and her face finally broke out into a smile.

"But did you know Sarah, that Harrington rigged this match? That she fed me instructions? Not enough for you to give up the game and leave early. Just enough to give you hope. To get you here, to let me win, so this scenario played out. Did you know that Sarah? You know what Sarah? You. Are. A. Complete. Hellbitch. But her? Harrington? Well. She's the devil herself!"

Sarah closed her eyes as Tanya began to bring her hand up, Harrington's laughter ringing in her ear.

********

Special Agent Stacey Shackleton and Agent Erin Masterton arrived at the crosswalk seconds after the walk signal had switched to stop. Fifty meters ahead, they could see the car they'd been following pull over and wait, the two red tail lights flickering in the cold night air of a Vancouver winter. Stacey and Erin resorted to jogging on the spot as they waited for the lights to switch back to their favour again, and Stacey gave the appropriate one finger salute to a couple of guys in a passing car who lent out of their windows to wolf whistle and holler.

Erin focussed her attention on the other side of the road, trying to push the ever-present cold out of mind and wondering just how much further they had to go. It was as she was weighing up the various options in the way of swear words for greeting their tour guide when they eventually met, that she suddenly had the sensation that there were a pair of eyes starring at her ass from directly behind. Swivelling around, Erin was greeted by the sight of a middle-aged man wrapped up in a very inviting coat, who had the look of someone who'd not been enjoying their evening walk until about ten seconds ago, and was now counting it as one of the best nights of their life.

"Excuse me." the man said, hesitantly. "Umm. You. You are aware, right? You are aware that you are completely naked?"

Erin, still jogging on the spot, breasts bouncing up and down, looked at the man with a raised eyebrow, before casting her eyes down to her exposed cleavage, and her neatly trimmed crotch.

"Good God sir! No I didn't! And thank you so much, for providing this valuable snippet of the blindingly obvious!" Erin was not having a good night, and she'd decided three blocks back that "nice, polite Erin" wasn't the type of girl to have her tits and ass on display for all to see, so clearly "nice and polite Erin" was somewhere else at the moment, leaving "sarcastic and pissed off Erin" to deal with the current calamity.

"And thank you so much. Thank you for seeing that what I really needed right now, right at this very moment, was an observation of the blatantly self-evident! A lesser man would have done something stupid and unnecessary like, I don't know, offering me his fucking coat or something. But you've suddenly made me realise that the reason my nipples feel like their about to fall off is that I forgot to put on any damn clothes before leaving the house! Silly me! That's certainly solved all my problems!"

Erin was being to feel warmed up merely from the rant, when she felt Stacey suddenly grab her arm, and yank her on to the crosswalk.

"If you've quite finished," Stacey muttered through chattering teeth, "I'd rather vent my frustrations on whoever got us here, rather than on some random idiot whose brain went into a meltdown at the sight of your naked backside!"

Erin grunted a sour acknowledgement, and then joined Stacey in jogging after the car that would hopefully lead them - eventually - to the location of the captured Tess Trueheart.

As the brunette and the red-head soldiered on in the cold, it almost felt like the locals were being warned ahead of time that two gorgeous, stark naked babes would be soon gracing their streets. They picked up the pace, and noticed the car did likewise to maintain a constant distance between them, and almost willed themselves to run fast enough that no-one would be able to properly see them.

That was futile though, especially into what appeared to be a constant head wind, and by the time they jogged past a bar that was only just beginning to see some business for the night, they were back down to a jog. Joined temporarily on their evening excursion by a couple of bar patrons, they were even momentarily thankful that the cold at least numbed the sensation of having their asses pinched, and the wind dulled the sound of the men's thoughts on what Stacey and Erin could do with the assets on display. Eventually, the pace and the wind mercifully forced their unwanted companions back.

As Stacey and Erin continued their run through the outskirts of the entertainment district, the car ahead finally took a turn towards the waterfront, and the two women found themselves pushing on towards the moonlit waters of Vancouver Harbour.

*******

Harrington looked at the two still shivering, stark naked agents, and let her eyes travel from one perfect breast to another. She made no effort to hide what she was doing, and without even uttering a word she made it abundantly clear that she felt neither Stacey nor Erin deserved the privilege of direct eye contact.

"Ladies. I trust your invigorating run through this beautiful city has shaken off any tiredness from what I'm sure was an exhausting flight."

Neither Stacey nor Erin graced that with a response. Instead they meditated on the fact that at least their core body temperatures were increasing in the blessed warmth of the large room that sat at the back of the waterfront warehouse. Only a few minutes had passed since the car had finally led them to their destination, but already there was some colour returning to the gorgeous skin on full display.