Tami was downright giddy as they ate. She seemed to have forgotten her prediction about bad things happening and he wasn't about to remind her. The casserole seemed gluey to him but she shoveled it down as she sat cross-legged in her usual position on the kitchen table. Being Tami and it being cold out, she ate about twice as fast as he did.
From time to time she paused to look down at her circlets and the C-string. She put her plate down and raised her crotch up for a close-up look. Rod's attention was arrested by this, of course, so she played it up. She grunted and did her old trick of jerking her clit up and down, a different effect now that it was hooded under the string.
"Mmmphhh!" Tami acted the part of her clit in a little voice, hand over her mouth. "Let me out! Let me out!" Then a giggle.
"It almost seems a shame to cover it," Rod said.
"I know... But when I get to wear clothes again, I can always strip down when I get in the house. You will still have a naked wife." She pointed to the little poem on the wall behind her, when she had proposed to Rod:
"Would you spend your life
"With a naked wife?"
"You will have a lot of clothes shopping to do," Rod said, with a theatrical shudder.
"I'm not going to go nuts," Tami said. "I had a dream once where I had a summer job and blew all my money on clothes and shoes. My closet was stuffed with them. I'd be fully clothed from head to toe, even in the summer heat. But that was when I was a freshman, when I was dying for any little bit of covering. It was my fantasy.
"Now," she said, gulping another bite of casserole, "I love being naked. Ich moechte ja. Sehr nett." She hadn't used German phrases in a while. "I'll wear only as much as I have to. No worries. I could go anywhere! There'll be a whole wide world I could visit now!" He was glad to hear her admit that. She stretched her legs out in front of her and flexed her toes, meticulously painted plum. "Except for one thing. I'd rather stay barefoot."
"Really?"
"Being barefoot, feeling the earth under me, reminds me of being naked more than any other thing. I think I can get away with it."
"Some places won't let you in with bare feet." Rod thought for a moment. "Carry around some uncomfortable looking high heels. Then tell them you had to take them off because your feet hurt." He had seen women do that sometimes, either as slaves to fashion or as a cunning way to get to go barefoot. "That might work."
They ate some more. "Joe comes back when?" Rod said.
"Next month. I'm so glad. I don't want him out there in Iraq another day. And not a moment too soon. I can tell Dad's just exhausted with that store. Last few times I called, he was already asleep."
"How's the Student Government thing? Still on that committee?"
"Yeah," Tami said. "Now it's turned into the Election Committee."
"The old guard passes. I bet it went downhill after you turned down running for president." That was two years ago. She would have won, of course. Tami was incredibly popular. It made him proud.
"Actually this year was not so bad. I have to hand it to Roberto, that Activities Night plan worked out pretty good. No fistfights... The committee is still together, though Lorinda is a pain."
"I don't know how you could even talk to that immature bitch." Just hearing that name made him angry. All that teasing and abuse of Tami during their freshman years. Rod had heard all about it from Jen.
"All that feels like a hundred years ago. Besides," taking a pause to swallow, "I feel sorry for her... She's probably like Samantha, all frustrated sexually."
Rod noticed the Cherish circlets, jiggling invitingly on her nipples as she swallowed. "How is the design business going?"
"Well. Quite well. Gretch and I are working on a full outfit for the International show, if I get picked. I just can't get the boots right. I don't know what it is, I have no sense for footwear. We might have to just have her in dress sandals or something.
"And then there's this problem." Tami got onto the floor and shook her shoulders, making her breasts bounce side to side. It reminded him of Brigid's test to see if her circlets were on securely. Then Tami jumped up and down, making her breasts bob.
"What is that all about?"
"The outfit just doesn't have the right support for the breasts. Gretchen's keep falling out. It's pretty embarrassing for her, even though no one's there to see except me. You know how she is. The topographical formulas work out, looking at the scans I've taken of my own bod, but Gretchen's boobs keep falling out anyway."
"Her boobs are different from yours." Not as firm, undoubtedly.
"It should work out the same. It's still a puzzle. Other than that, the dyeing is working out good. We've got six colors going."
"And this one?" He pointed to her circlets. "Which is that, teal?"
"Yes. Pretty good color ID for a hetero guy!" She looked down at them. "Goes good with my plum hair." Looking at the plum pubic bush bisected by the teal C-string, it was hard to disagree. "Say Rod, now that I can wear some little bits, can I follow my true professional ambition?"
"What is that?"
She patted his head, then caressed it, her white hands always a contrast to the dark brown elegance of his shaved scalp. "Why being a topless dancer at Teaser's, of course! Watch!" Hands on her hips, with subtle motions of her shoulders she made the left circlet trace a clockwise circle in the air, while the right one circled counter-clockwise. Rod could only whistle and clap.
"That reminds me," Tami said, getting up on the table to eat again. "Yvette's coming over tomorrow."
Rod rolled his eyes. "STILL at Teaser's?"
"She seems OK. She's got me half convinced that you can work there and not be desperate, or nuts."
"After all the effed-up girls you've rescued from that place?"
Tami shrugged and gulped down more gluey casserole.
"Looks damn unacceptable," Acting Dean Anthony Noyes said, appraising the scene from the Dean's Office window up on the top floor. It was rather dark out, due to the snow clouds, but he could see something like this pretty well.
"Me, I don't mind," George Halifax said, leaning forward almost into the pane, stuffing a potato chip into his mouth, wiping a broken piece off his already-greasy tie.
They were watching the apparently naked form of Ms. Tami Smithers on one of the concrete tables, spreading her legs wide for a little crowd of faculty and students who were well bundled up on this cold and windy day. Of course, she was showing off her C-string. Over the past few days this had been a common sight.
"It shows progress, those little bits covering her privates and her tits," Halifax said. "Almost sexier than wearing nothing at all."
"I know, but we can't have her spreading her legs all over the campus. She's never done anything like that before and it just looks like hell. She's always acted so . . . modest."
"You know all you have to do is say something to her and she'll stop," Halifax said, searching a pocket for a doughnut. Then he remembered he ate it an hour ago. "Why begrudge her a few last days of happiness?"
Noyes shook his head. "The Pentagon. The damned Pentagon!"
Halifax, for once not chomping on food, said, "You're going to go along with it? Sometimes your connections are not, you know, helpful."
"Or at least not the right ones. My crowd left a long time ago... So what do you think?"
Halifax arranged his bulk over the comfy chair next to the window and sat. "They approached you with their idea, and you should let her know. How can you not? She's an adult, in the eyes of the law."
"She'd wonder how they found out about her project in the first place."
Leaning over to look down at Tami, spreading her legs for a new crowd, merrily pushing her crotch in their faces, Halifax said, "She doesn't seem like the suspicious type."
"I just don't want her getting mixed up in all that -- crap," Noyes said.
"It's a stinking business," Halifax nodded. "A stinking business!"
Noyes exhaled. After a moment he said, "Another problem is what to tell Girardo."
"Well he'll be sure to have Konrad look at it." The fashion department professor who was also an intellectual property attorney.
"And I bet I know what that guy will say," Noyes said. "He hates anything connected with the military."
"Getting busted down and drummed out because you're gay can do that to you," Halifax said. "Even if it was twenty years ago."
Now, down below, the wheeled figure of Homer Winant came into view. Accompanied by Omar, Homer's replacement as grounds crew chief. They stayed back at a distance, watching Tami spread her legs for yet another crowd. The C-string was not visible from Noyes's viewpoint but of course he knew it was there. A couple of people reached in between Tami's legs to touch it.
Listlessly, Noyes said, "And it gets her off campus after she graduates."
"Yes, yes, yes... There's always that."
"What can we do? What ELSE can we do?" Noyes said. "Tell her about the Pentagon grant proposal... when we know she can't really say 'no'?"
As this conversation was taking place, Homer and Omar, a husky, dark-skinned native of Cuba, approached Tami as she hopped off the table, reached back to flick some concrete dust off her butt, and picked up her bookbag.
"You graduate in a few weeks, my congratulations in advance," Homer said. "We have something to talk about. Let's take you this way."
Tami followed them, not asking any questions, probably because she had a sense of what they wanted. In fact she could read their minds, as she overtook them and strode toward the big black metallic sculpture. They watched, intently as ever, the motions of her muscular thighs, the tight bare butt, the bare back, flushed red in the blustery cold. Finally they arrived and glanced at the little name plate on the socle.
"Tami Takes Flight".
Abstract but not overly so, a creation of the late Jan Latimer, the eminent sculptor who was on the faculty for so long. A nude young woman, one leg out behind her, bent forward at the hip, arms extended, as if she really were about to fly. The shaping was an exquisitely accurate rendition of Tami's curves (at least as they were at age 18), though there were no specifics except for the eyes and nose and some lines on the feet that indicated toes.
"Being that the conditions under which you posed for this were, no fault of Jan's, to be sure, but questionable," Homer said, "we want to leave it up to you to decide what to do about this."
"If you want," Omar, who was still her boss, added, "you can help us break it down and put it into storage. Or the other guys can do it without you. Or, we can move it onto the back lot."
Tami looked up at it -- it was about five times her size -- then jumped up to one of the arms. Her breasts, tight and red with the cold, bounced as she swung herself up on top. She looked down at them, hands on hips. The cold metal must have been like ice to her bare feet. Not that Tami would mind, after all this time.
Some people stopped to watch. Now, in a loud voice, the all but naked
woman said, smiling, "No, keep it!" And, on top of the statue,
she raised one leg out up behind her and spread her arms, giving an exact
impression of the statue below her, the pose she assumed as ordered so long ago
when she was a scared and
mortified teenager. It was so striking a scene that people flipped out
their cell phones to take pictures.
The snow fell ever more heavily on the way home and Rod was almost in danger of getting hypnotized by the flakes hitting the windshield. By the time he pulled into the driveway it was totally dark and there were two inches on the ground. It would be good to see Tami. I wonder what extra bits of fabric she could get on today? Maybe bigger circlets? Maybe a string around her butt to hold up a thong bottom? It was like the Brigid dreams in reverse order.
He stamped the snow from his boots and took them off before he got to the kitchen. "Home, Babe!" he announced.
Not hearing a response, he stood still, standing there in his stockinged feet and his coat and hat and gloves. Then he heard sniffling.
He was immediately concerned. Tami hardly ever got a cold. He padded into the bedroom and saw her at the desk, minus C- string and circlets, red eyed, tears down her face, staring at the computer screen.
"What's wrong?"
Tami sniffled again and looked at him through bleary eyes. "Joe."
Rod's heart stopped. Her little brother Joe was due back next month. "Is he OK?"
Tami nodded. "No, not that. Thank goodness he's OK. But they just extended his tour eighteen months. And he's going into a combat zone."
Rod closed his eyes. "Jesus." They had both heard on the news of this kind of thing happening. And kept themselves from thinking that it could happen to Joe. Well, now it had happened.
"And..." Tami had a hard time getting the words out. "Dad is killing himself working all hours at the hardware store. He was looking forward to getting some help from Joe, counting the days!" She stared down at her bare sole grinding into the floor.
"SHIT!!!" Suddenly she slammed her fist onto the desk, causing the keyboard to fall against her knee. She kicked the keyboard away and it disconnected and rattled across the floor. Then the mouse, which she always kept on the floor, got a kick.
Rod could only approach her sobbing nakedness and pick her up, taking her into her arms like a sick child. Then he gently laid her onto the bed.
He sat next to her. "I'm sorry to hear that, Babe."
Tami sniffled and wiped her nose. After she caught her breath, she said, "And here I am lying about in college. Dad is trying to make ends meet. Joe is fighting a war. And I'm just dawdling around."
"Hardly. Nobody has worked harder in school than you."
"Well it's not helping my Dad, isn't?" She looked over at the dresser. The C-string was on top, next to her circlets. She looked at these, her entire wardrobe, for a long time. Then she said, "Yvette will be here for dinner. I'll ask her about Teaser's. Dad needs some cash."
Rod was so horrified he was speechless for a moment. "Babe, don't even think about it!" It was so out of place, he couldn't even picture Tami dancing in front of creepy jerks stuffing filthy dollar bills into her . . .
"Why not? On a good night Yvette makes three hundred dollars." Tami got up wearily and looked at herself in the mirror. Then a languid grin. "I don't mind saying my body will probably be the best one in the place."
He was glad to see a little lightness. "No doubt. The other girls will be jealous of you. Prepare for a catfight." Which Tami, of course, would easily win.
Still, asking Yvette for a job as a stripper should be avoided. Rod said, "Maybe you should call Yvette to cancel. This is a bad time to entertain guests."
"No, it's too late." Rod was ready to talk her out of it but then the doorbell rang. "Well here she is..." Tami got up and took a deep breath, her breasts heaving. She wiped her eyes dry with the blanket, briefly checked her hair in the mirror, made a quick adjustment to a pubic curl which had gotten out of place, and got the door.
It was a glum supper. Tami brought out the bean salad and stew she had made and they ate listlessly. Yvette tried to be cheerful, telling her about her parents' new house in Montreal, how her boyfriend Pierre was nicer recently and they might be living together again, about her plan to go to the "Lycee", apparently some kind of secretarial school, in a town called Saint Bruno de Montarville. But the oppressive gloominess beat her down until she was as silent as her hosts.
Finally Rod said, "You have to forgive us, Yvette. Tami's brother Joe is in Iraq. We just found out that his tour has been extended another year and a half."
"Tour?"
"Yes, time of his... uh, assignment. He's a, what, a Specialist Third Class now?" Tami nodded.
"Oh. Some of the guys at the club were in Iraq. I very much hope your brother is well. Is that a far place?"
"Yes," Rod said.
After a moment, Yvette said, "I like your country but I am glad I am... Canadienne."
Tami and Rod ate silently, deciding not to voice any reactions they might have. Mostly Rod was thankful that Tami was not asking about a job at Teaser's.
Yvette, clearly feeling miserable, said, "Please to think that I should go."
"No," Tami said. Then, looking out the window at the night, where the snow had stopped, she said, "I've got a plan." She went to the sink and bent down to get something from the lower cabinet. Yvette looked at Tami's butthole, winking in their faces, and wondered once again how this always-naked woman could be so free of shame. Even most of the dancers at Teaser's, getting totally naked in the private dance booths, were shy about exposing that last, most secret part of themselves.
Tami placed a bottle of Irish whiskey on the table with a loud thump. "I want to get smashed. Anyone want to join me?"
"I have to drive home," Yvette pointed out.
"You can stay over," Tami said. Then she grabbed a twelve- ounce class and poured it half full. And quaffed it like it was orange juice.
Well, Rod always knew that Tami had this capacity. Anyone whose favorite drink is a martini... Tami poured another.
"Well, OK, Babe, count me in," he said, though he filled his glass half full of water before she hit him. Why the hell not? Somehow it seemed the proper thing to do. Bad news and nothing to be done about it. Tami wanted to get drunk and they should get drunk with her. Why not?
He tried to drink as fast as Tami but it was not easy. He had never liked whiskey, it was too strong for him, and after the first glass he felt the dizziness kick in. Through his disorientation he saw Yvette put her glass out, though she mixed it with cola that Tami got from the fridge.
The three drank and then retired to the living room, where Tami put some oldies CD's on, Beach Boys and Beatles which she said Joe liked. Tami brought in some chips. Rod took a final belt of whiskey and announced he was turning in. He walked into the bedroom, still in his clothes, and fell onto the bed like a dead man, not moving. Yvette and Tami followed him to see this and giggled.
It turned out Yvette had almost as much capacity for alcohol as Tami. "You must be half Irish," Tami said as she staggered up to change a CD.
"Ooohh, I know this one," Yvette said, picking out an Enrique Iglesias CD. She danced to it as Tami watched. "They play this at the club." Tami laughed as Yvette did some dancer moves, exaggerating the swing and sway of the hips, the mugging at the guys sitting around the stage. The Canadian girl was glad to lift Tami's spirits. She did a modified limited strip tease, getting down to her bra and panties and socks, flinging away each piece of clothing like a stripper from the old days, when the girl would start the set fully clothed and take her time.
After the last CD finished, the two young women sat on the couch silently, Yvette feeling exposed but looking heavily clothed next to her always naked friend. Finally Tami said, "Thanks for hangin' out." She got up on unsteady feet and drank the last of the whiskey straight from the bottle. "You can... shtay in the guest room." Then to Yvette's surprise, she violently stamped her tough sole on the hardwood floor. "F**KING SHIT!! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!!" Her breasts bounced with each stomp. Her bleary eyes blinked. She seemed about to throw the bottle on the floor but changed her mind.
Then, "Good night." And she was off to bed with Rod.
Her dream, where the naked Tami, brandishing a machine gun, was leading a platoon of heavily clothed soldiers into battle, was interrupted by a double horn honk. She recognized it with alarm. But it wasn't part of her dream. And then another double honk. She woke up, head pounding, and lurched out of the guest room, and then put on her coat. She didn't go outside but looked through the kitchen window, and out past the Jeep and the old yellow VW Bug out to the street.
Yet another double honk. The tall figure on the motorcycle, out on the plowed street, seemed to look straight through her. "Come out, 'Vette!"
She slipped into her boots and crept outside the door. There was no moon out but the snow everywhere had its own dull glow. In a loud whisper she said, in French, "You should not be here. Please go. I'll see you at the club."
"No way. You belong with me!" He was in one of his moods again. "Do I have to come in and make you?"
To Yvette's horror, a strong, naked, and somewhat drunk woman appeared behind her. "Who is that?" Tami said.
Yvette paused but knew she had to answer. "Pierre."
Tami's eyes flashed. "Jesus! What's he doing here?!" Then she yelled out, "Go home. She doesn't want you here!!"
"Shhhh!" Yvette whispered to Tami, holding her hand up. Tami pushed the hand down.
"You stay out of this!" Pierre shouted.
"No, YOU GET THE F**K OUT OF HERE!" Tami surged past Yvette and stomped out into the fluffy snow. "You heard me, GO!!"
At first Pierre was shocked to see the naked woman striding toward him, barefoot in the snow. Then he smiled. Another one of Yvette's dancer friends, the kind of stunt one might see from a crazy stripper chick. As she approached him he prepared to grab her by her skinny arms, wait as she pretended to struggle, then give her a big wet kiss. Maybe they'd be into a threesome . . .
But Tami ran up to him and to his utter astonishment pushed him off his bike. Then kicked him in the crotch with her bare toes. He tried to get up and land a few punches, but the naked girl, sliding and dodging and hitting, was too quick for him. Bare feet on snow are slippery, but unhindered by clothing she was quicker than him. Snow flung up around them, kicked up by her toes as the struggle continued, Tami's breasts bouncing, her muscular thighs flashing, her fists swinging, always hitting their target.
It was all Pierre could do to retreat and hop onto his bike and gun the engine. He forgot to be careful with the plowed-over snow surface and the bike slipped out from under him. On his second try he managed a more controlled ride and was soon out of sight, the engine sputtering away in the winter night.
Yvette didn't know what to think as she saw Tami, standing up in the street, catching her breath, snow on her hair and her pubic bush and encrusting her toes, watching where Pierre had escaped. Then Tami turned and scared the hell out of her as she approached her with the same violent intent.
"WHAT THE F**K DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING, TELLING THAT CREEP WHERE WE LIVE?" She shouted, apparently too drunk to realize that half the town could hear her, or at least the ones who were up at 1 a.m. "You know how -- dangerous that is??! Do me a favor! Get that f**ked up head of yours straight! Jesus!!"
And now Tami stormed back into the house, leaving Yvette out on the doorstep, alone with her thoughts.
She was mortified to the bone, and got back to the guest room and tried to think. And then tried to sleep. Then she got up and thought she might apologize to Tami. But Tami was snoring that loud Tami snore, face down next to Rod in their bed, her foot sticking out, melted snow and some street grit on her bare sole.
Yvette went to the kitchen and got a bottle out of the lower cabinet. It was some kind of sweet cordial. She drank a glass of it. Then she looked out the back door, out to the back lawn, the park area beyond, the long inviting stretch of virgin white snow, peaceful snow, quiet snow, eternal snow... She got into her boots and coat and, with unsteady hands, pried open the big glass doors and walked out. She felt tired and sleepy. Very, very sleepy. She had heard that falling asleep in the snow was the least painful way to go...
She awoke with heavy lidded eyes and immediately squinted from the unbearably bright light all around her. So this was what Heaven was like. She thought of all she knew on Earth and was sad. She might be looking down on it but would still miss all those people very much.
Another few blinks and she smelled the disinfectant and heard the shuffling of clogs and knew she was in a hospital of some kind. And she felt relieved. She would have cried with thankfulness if she could.
She tried to get up and found herself being supported by an old nurse. "Steady, my dear," she said with grandmotherly assurance. "You'll be fine now, but go slow."
In another minute she had been sat up and was facing a tray of apple juice and cereal and a banana. This time it was another nurse, much younger, about her age. "Try to drink as much as you can." Yvette recognized the French Canadian accent, and read the name tag on the uniform: Jeanne.
She drank and ate and savored the tastes on her tongue. In heaven, she decided, one is a spirit and cannot enjoy the sensations of the flesh. Then she said, "I have a pounding headache."
Jeanne laughed. "Not surprising. Your alcohol level was almost fatal. You're taking vitamins and water now."
For the first time Yvette noticed the IV in her arm, going up to the bag on the stand. "Where am I?"
"The Chalfont Institute Emergency Room." She looked around. It was a very small emergency room, maybe three empty beds and then hers. And a passage into a hall of some kind.
She was not sure where this was. She had never heard of "Chalfont". But in a flash she remembered something. "Tami. Tami took me here."
Jeanne nodded. "Ms. Smithers dragged you in over her shoulder at three o'clock this morning, then collapsed." Jeanne pointed to the hall. "She's in intensive care."
"Alors!! Is she OK?"
"She's OK"
"Can I see her?"
"She's still sleeping."
"I still want to just see her. To make sure she's all right."
It was a struggle but Yvette got up, on unsteady stockinged feet. Then she realized she had on a hospital gown with an open back. She tried to close it behind her with one hand but then decided to give up the attempt. Having her backside showing was a trivial price to pay for being alive.
Jeanne steadied Yvette as they slowly walked into the hall. They turned into the second door on the left and Yvette gasped.
Tami was lying face up in a glass tank, at about the same height as if she were in a bed. The tank was about as high and wide and deep as a mattress. The water was bubbling gently and was warm, filling the room with a steamy vapor, like a sauna. The naked girl was sleeping, a tube in her nose, patches with wires going to each breast and to each thigh. And another wire going up in between her legs.
Her skin was bright pink, like a baby's.
Yvette was standing there open-mouthed so Jeanne gave the explanation she would have asked for. "Of course we already knew who she was. She was seriously hypothermic, and the prescribed treatment is warm towels. But because of her -- her disability, we could not do that. So Dr. Kantor was called and suggested the tank. It was used in the Institute for lab work. Her temperature came back to normal bit by bit."
"Oh God..." Yvette wept in misery. "Oh Lord... She'll be all right?"
"She's almost back to normal now." Jeanne looked up at various gauges. "She won't wake up for a while though."
And now someone she didn't want to see, Rod, walking in with a coffee in a styrofoam cup. It was clear he didn't particularly want to see her either. "Hello."
"... Hi."
"I hear you'll be all right."
"Yes."
Yvette, helped by Jeanne, made it back to her bed and sat up as Jeanne put blankets over her. She looked outside at the sun rising over the snowy scene, and thought of last night, and of Tami, and what almost happened. She watched the sun get higher in the sky. She sat and watched for a long time.
Rod sipped the coffee, which was really terrible, and felt the pounding of his hangover. He looked at the strange pinkness of Tami's skin, from head to toe, interrupted only by the wedding ring tattoo around the third toe of her left foot. Called in the middle of the night by the E.R., he had stumbled out of bed. He had heard that Chalfont had an emergency room and medical clinic to serve the town. Someone had mentioned it that awful evening at the airport restaurant as Tami was sobbing through orgasm after orgasm delivered to her by that out-of-control tail dildo deep in her gut. But he had never been here.
Standing there with his coffee, he almost started to cry himself. What a lucky guy he was to have Tami Smithers, the prettiest, strongest, bravest girl in the world. And she loved him as much as he loved her. And he had almost lost her!
He looked at the peaceful face, above the warm bubbling medicated water. He glanced at her nipples, breaking the surface as she breathed. And thought of what had happened. Such a brave girl, going naked through the cold to save someone. Exposed to the elements... bravely doing her duty and marching on... while everyone else is all bundled up...
"Frigid Brigid."
The words came out of his mouth before he even thought of them. They hung in the air, incongruous in this setting.
Tami's eyes popped open. "What did you say?"
"Oh Babe! You surprised me. I didn't know you were awake!"
"I didn't know you were here!"
"How do you feel?"
Tami glanced down at her pink nakedness and took a deep breath. Her breasts rose up and emerged from the water to the extent of -- well, about as much as was covered by Brigid's circlets. From the dream where they were on the local TV show.
"I feel warm, thank goodness." She smacked her lips. "And thirsty."
"Here," he said, giving her a bottle of water from the tray. "They say you should drink as much as possible."
"I sure did that, last night," Tami said, holding her head.
Rod laughed. "Non-alcohol, that is."
Tami sat up in the tank and sipped. "Oooh," she said, shifting. "This wire is way up my butt." It was obviously a thermometer. They looked at a gauge that said 97 degrees.
"Looks like I'm back to normal," Tami observed.
"I thought it was a dream I was hearing," Rod said. "You beating up that guy and yelling at Yvette."
Tami shook her head slowly. "Good thing I woke up later when I did. I suddenly had the sense that something was wrong. My nips told me so."
"And then you saw the open back door and followed the prints of her boots in the snow."
"Yes."
"You carried her... it must be a mile to here. Why didn't you drive her?"
"I was too drunk to drive. Or maybe to think of that. We were all drunk."
Rod looked out to the hall that led to the emergency room. "Damn stupid girl."
Tami put the bottle back on the tray and lay down again, until the water was up to her chin. "It was my fault. I can't believe I yelled at her like that."
"Babe, don't be wack."
Tami's features darkened. "Knowing how... fragile that girl is mentally... I just shouldn't have." She looked up at him. "And look what almost happened. Oh Rod... I've never been so embarrassed in my life."
Rod looked down at the plum-colored pubic bush, exposed to the world's gaze for three and a half years, and thought of the mortified, scared naked child he had fallen in love with. Then up at the brooding face.
She brought her dripping hand up to hold his. "Rod, I love being in this warm water. I don't ever want to be cold again." She closed her eyes. "Going through that snow... I was so cold... so cold..."
Now she sat up again and cleared her throat. "I've got to wear clothes, and fast."
As if on cue, Dr. Kantor walked in and smiled. "Ms. Smithers, I'm glad you're O.K. Welcome to our clinic. I came over to be your attending physician. Let me express on behalf of all of us our appreciation. You saved that girl's life." He looked at his clipboard. "The average person would have died. You simply had hypothermia."
"You sound a bit cavalier about what she's been through," Rod observed.
"Sorry, but in fact she was not in any real danger. She was at eighty-eight degrees. We were more concerned about the girl. She was fully clothed but also badly poisoned by alcohol... How do you feel? How do your toes feel?"
Tami sat up, water dripping down her breasts. The old nurse walked in and now there were four people standing around the naked young woman in the warm water tank. They watched as she flexed her toes and wiggled them, causing little waves. "I'm fine. Doctor, I've got to get a job right after I graduate. I've got to wear clothes like the rest of you do. Can we... accelerate the desensitization sessions?"
Dr. Kantor clearly wasn't expecting to talk about this. He scratched his scrawny beard. "Accelerate?"
"After two years I can only wear that little C-string and those circlets. That's not fast enough. My family's in a fix. I've got to be fully employable in a month."
They sat in the front row of the Little Theater: Barbara, Rosaria, Melissa, Spica, Jeane, Myra, Tami and the special guest, Ms. Jen McIntyre, studying the twenty-page stapled handouts. All stylishly clothed, in their own way, Barbara, the 30-year-old grad student, in her studied frumpiness, Rosaria, in her female jock attire, Jen in her Peter Pan hairdo and leotard and leg warmers. All stylishly clothed except of course for Tami, whose stark nakedness contrasted with their fashion sense. All had their legs crossed in the usual female fashion, one foot out front, forming a row of shoes sticking out toward the stage, interrupted by Tami's bare foot. A few rows back, Ms. Gretchen Spaulding, in a sweater and jeans, holding her coat in her lap, and Tami's husband, Mr. Rod Sykes, having just gotten back from work, in his engineer's suit and mud-stained project boots.
In front of the stage, Dr. Kantor, in his white lab coat and scrawny beard, and the rather shorter Dr. Abu Jamal, standing stiffly and formally in his three-piece suit. To their sides, on folding chairs, several Chalfont Institute interns, and a six members of the Chalfont faculty.
This was the 150-seat Little Theater of the Chalfont Institute. Not a place for plays, but for medical education films and guest lectures. There were no curtains, no catwalks, no colored lights. The lights were fluorescent and buzzed away quietly overhead as the TL's and Jen read.
"Let me begin," Dr. Kantor said. "You've been given a brief review of the literature which you can fully peruse later. Do not hesitate to e-mail me if you have any questions. Please use the campus intranet, of course. You can understand why this matter should be disclosed to others.
"Ms. Smithers -- I hope you don't mind if I call her Tami -- during her prolonged nudity, developed a contrapositive reaction toward clothes. Having experienced abundent orgasmic pleasure while naked, her body came to associate the wearing of clothes with pain. Thanks to the efforts of what we've been calling the desensitization team, the six of you, a small amount of progress has been made. Through timing the attachment of covering with the onset and duration of orgasm and its associated endorphins, Tami can now wear an amount of fabric totaling in the aggregate approximately ten square centimeters.
"However, this amounts to coverage of only one-fifth of one percent of Tami's body. Due to circumstances in her life, progress has to be accelerated. This presents a problem. Our current limited knowledge of how to stimulate the brain's pleasure centers is limited. Physical orgasm remains the most powerful known pleaurable stimulus, and the most powerful reinforcer of associated sensations. Tami's orgasms are unusually intense and long. How can we, shall we say, 'improve' on that?
"The answer lies in a qualitative leap to a type of response that has been reported in the literature, firstly by Masters and Johnson in 1966. This is the 'status orgasmus'. On page 3 of your handouts is the description and an electrocardiograph of one recorded instance, showing levels of stimulation of the vaginal opening, heart rate, and contractions of the uterus.
"As you can see, this status orgasmus lasted 25 contractions, extending over 45 seconds, which we can assume that is not the maximum possible. It was associated with hyperventilation and extreme tachycardia, up to 180 beats per minute or more. Only someone in superb physical condition can therefore achieve it for any length of time. Ms. Smithers certainly fits that category, given her rigorous exercise habits.
"Your task will be to induce status orgasmus in Tami. With an extended period of orgasm, we hope that a much greater amount of clothing can be placed on her, and there will be enough time before the end of the episode that her body will become used to the covering.
"I now will ask Tami to come up here on the table to illustrate what you should be looking for. Tami?"
The naked girl silently and solemnly climbed up on the table and lay down facing them. She extended her legs wide, wide, wider, until she could hold her bare feet with her hands. With her hands pulling, her legs were extended almost to a ballet dancer's split. The TL's got up and crowded around the table. They were joined by the interns and the faculty until every spot around the table was taken by the people standing around, peering intently at the spread naked girl. Rod and Gretchen stayed back in their seats.
Tami's stretch caused the familiar sight of her pussy lips opening. Pointing to them, Dr. Kantor said, "Status orgasmus begins with a sharp contraction lasting two to four seconds. Tami has practiced this and will now show us what it might look like. Tami?"
A violent closing and then opening of Tami's lower lips, which caused her whole body to shake and the table to wiggle. It so suprised the observers that they lurched backward.
"Let's try that again."
Another violent snapping of the pussy.
"Now, if you study the chart, you see that as status orgasmus progresses, the contractions are at first not as pronounced, the inter-contraction period being almost as myotonic as the contractions themselves, but after the first ten or so, it becomes a more all-and-nothing situation, meaning the spasms become more pronounced and more violent, there being a greater contrast with the inter-contractory period. Oone might guess that the subject would feel as if she were being jerked from one end of the universe to the other. We feel it is at that point that the clothing can be attached. Tami has also practiced what such contractions might look like. Tami?"
Tami grunted rhythmically, as the students and faculty were treated to the sight of her pussy lips opening and shutting like doors being flung open and slammed shut. For the TL's, it was a more violent motion than they had seen during the hundreds of times they had brought their naked Queen to orgasm. All the time, Tami's eyes were open, staring impassively at the ceiling.
"Similar contractions, as you might guess, would occur anally. Tami?"
Tami got up onto all fours and turned around. She put her face down to the table and spread her butt cheeks with her hands. She had long had the ability to make her anus gape. Now, her anal orifice opened to the amazing width of almost two inches. The buzzing overhead lights allowed everyone to see the dark, red recesses of her recently irrigated rectum. As heads craned in to look, they could even see the little "inner butthole" that led into her sigmoid colon. Now Tami shut herself closed, then opened again to two inches, then shut again. She grunted with each motion, as her butt bucked and the table shook. Her upturned toes wiggled and flexed wildly.
"Thank you, Tami. Now if you would..."
They looked up as Campbell-Frank's only naked student, as prearranged, stood up on the table, separated her legs, held up her arms, and stretched herself out into a big "X". Dr. Kantor pointed here and there. "Other physiological changes you should look out for are those typical of orgasm. Of course Tami's orgasmic response is well known to all of us and, indeed, all around campus. The flush over the breasts, the puckering of the nipples, the engorgement of the labia... note here, here and here... the flaring of the nostrils up there, the spreading of the toes down here."
Tami turned around so that her rear was facing them, still stretching to the ceiling in an "X", giving them a full view of her thin but strong arms, butt and legs.
"The clenching of the buttocks, the flush on the rear of the thighs and the upper back, and so on."
Tami hopped off the table, her bare feet slapping onto the tile floor. "You can sit now." Everyone did except Tami, who remained standing facing them.
Dr. Kantor, standing to the side, said, "You have all been assigned your stations on Tami's body. As you might guess, the violence of the motions in status orgasmus makes some type of fixation necessary. Fortunately, one of you, Spica, has alerted us to a device that has already been designed by one of the undergraduates majoring in sculputuring."
On cue, Sessu, the modest Japanese art major, appeared on the rear of the stage, pushing a large scaffold-looking thing on wheels. It was the device he had shown Tami a couple of months ago, his invention for placing Tami upright and having seats for each of the TL's around her. Sessu, who had wished he could be a TL but knew that as a male he would not be permitted, now felt relieved and maybe vindicated, though he wished it could have been in a happier setting. When he first showed this device to Tami, she had not yet been approached about having more than one TL lick her at a time. And she had shown a wordless but obvious dislike for the device, for reasons she did not give.
The scaffold was wheeled up to the lip of the stage, right up behind Tami. She glanced back at it briefly, with no expression.
"Each of you has your own station, as I said." Dr. Kantor pointed up to the seven color coded seats in front, up to the sides, in the rear, and at the bottom. He looked down at his clipboard. "Ms. McIntyre at Tami's vagina and clitoris, Ms. Villareal and Ms. Thomas at Tami's nipples, Ms. Simpson at Tami's face and scalp, Ms. Jones and Ms. Schreiber at Tami's toes, and Ms. Firenza at Tami's anus.
"Note also the cuffs for Tami's wrists and ankles," Dr Kantor went on. "Again, the necessity of fixation. This has to be carefully coordinated and controlled. As I'm sure you know and as I understand you have much experience in that. In particular, as the final session begins you must resist the urge to bring Tami to a quick orgasm. She may beg, she may plead, but you must hold back, and build up and build up."
He stood behind Tami as she continued to face the audience impassively. "Our plan is for there to be a 'test run' of this fixation device early next week. Then at a designated point we will begin Tami's preparation for the actual immersion into clothes. As part of this preparation it is important that Tami not have an orgasm for two weeks." The sense of loss among the TL's was palpable but, knowing what was at stake for their Queen, they suppressed any pouts. "Also, Ms. Smithers, if you would refrain from wearing any of your bits of clothing during that time. You must stay absolutely naked.
"Also, it is recommended that you expose yourself to cold as much as possible. I know that, after that second April blizzard the other day, it has finally gotten warm, but try to roll around in whatever snow you can find that hasn't melted. The status orgasmus itself will be attempted up on Mount Washington, in subfreezing temperatures, and the clothing immersion will be into a preheated, full-length imitation fur coat and preheated insulated boots. The idea is to sharpen your body's desire for clothing and warmth, as well as sharpening its desire for orgasmic release. Again, the ramping up to the first violent contraction will be very slow and controlled. Excruciatingly slow, from your perspective. I apologize for all of the above, but we have to maximize the chances for success.
"I have to repeat, as I did in the handout, that there are risks. We are on untravelled ground here. Tami might not be able to achieve status orgasmus, or her reaction to clothes might not be what we hope. There is always the possibility of anaphylactic shock. An EMT will be on hand.
"But, as we know, this is something that Ms. Smithers has requested and, given her family situation, something that has to be done. Tami," he said, turning to the naked girl, "we are all in support of you. We dearly hope to help you."
"Yes!" the TL's said almost at once. "Amen," Rod said. "We love you Tami!" shouted out Spica. This made Tami smile for the first time. Spica hopped up and hugged the bare shoulders in her jacketed arms.
"Are there any questions?"
Barbara tentatively raised her hand. "I don't want to sound pessimistic... but... Tami is in a very stressful point in her life right now. Isn't it unrealistic to expect her to be in the right... mood... for a status orgasmus?"
Blandly, as if nothing strange was about to be discussed, Dr. Kantor said, "Gentlemen, ladies, I think this concludes the orientation into what you will be observing. I thank you for your time. We will just have a little chitchat now."
As if as a matter of course, the faculty and interns got up and left, leaving Dr. Kantor, Dr. Abu Jamal, Jen, the TL's and Sessu, Rod and Gretchen.
Of course, something like Barbara's question had been on their minds. Tami looked over briefly at Dr. Kantor and then at the TL's. She twisted her big toe against the floor, then scratched a nipple, signs of uneasiness. Then she said: "I have... a lot of experience in... coming... over and over... when my heart wasn't in it."
Dr. Kantor let silence sink in for a few moments. Then he said, "Ms. McIntyre has a few things she will explain to you about Ms. Smithers's freshman year experiences at the Chalfont Institute. Tami, do you want to stay?"
Tami thought and said, "No, I'd rather not. Thank you all." And she left with Rod and Gretchen.
Jen got up and waited until they were gone. Then she stood up and faced the TL's, and Sessu, who had sat down with them. In her quiet, graceful voice, she said, "This will take a while. I'm going to tell you a story. About how Tami got to be naked and how she got to be multi-orgasmic. It is really a horrible story..."