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Out of Bounds (Unplugged)
Chapter 3.
III. It's In the Mail
There were days, thought the senior man at the lobby guard desk of the Center's Admin Building, when this job had its compensations. He smiled to himself as he raised his hand to the mouthpiece of his comm set and passed the word to all monitoring stations: keep an eye on what's coming up the front walk. Very quickly, the chatter on the security comm jammed the channel and spilled over into several others.
"Holy... Mommy, can I have one?"
"I've died and gone to heaven; there's the evidence walking up to the front door."
"Jesus! Doesn't that have to be the prettiest sight you ever did see?"
"I think I'm getting a stiffy just sitting here watching them. What's it like to be them."
"Be them or be in them?"
"Hell, I'd be happy just to get a sniff."
"Well, that's about all you would get."
Striding up the walk, five abreast, Nordstrom bags full of swag, wearing sunglasses and cat/canary expressions, were the five dollies, V'Alaska Dolly, Xe Doll, Gabrielle Dolly, Dolly Lao Ma, and Callisto Dolly. What was exciting all of the comment was their clothing. All five of them were wearing outfits made of some gunmetal gray fabric that shimmered with their movement in the early afternoon sunlight.
The outfits were all variations on a short cocktail dress or a top-and-skirt combination. If every girl should have at least one dress to make grown men cry, these five would leave a trail of tears across the state. The cut of the garments, the flesh they exposed, the flesh they did not, were all calculated most carefully to cause heart palpitations in any person seeing them. Each woman shone differently in her particular outfit. Gabrielle's said "Fuck Me" in an open, ingenuous girl-next-door way, whereas Dolly Lao Ma's was darker, more mysterious, but no less exciting for all of that. Xe Doll's was edgy and menacing with her strength and charisma, but the danger Callisto projected was almost as much in the risk to herself as to others.
"Holy, shit!" came an exclamation over the intercom. "That's chain mail!"
"Oo! Kinky!" was the only reaction to break the silence.
"And it's the lightweight stuff, too! You can see through it, sorta," someone else noticed. On monitor screens all over the building a view zoomed in to a close up of a ruddy areola, barely visible through the almost sheer metal fabric.
"Nice tits," somebody said.
"So whattaya think? Is that a go-to-hell dress or a fuck-me dress?"
"Oh, fuck-me, definitely."
"You're dreaming. I say it's go-to-hell."
"What's the difference."
"Who she's wearing it for. Who she wants to see."
"I don't get you guys. Our dollies are nice girls."
There was general laughter. That was a Troll, for sure. Nobody else was so smitten with the dollies as to not see through that goody-goody act. They were sex kittens to a girl. Just depended which way you swung as to whether or not that was good news. Men and Elves took a more practical view of things, but the Noble Trolls could be relied upon to take the mystical and romantic path every time. But they were great to have on your side in a fight.
And then the five were being helped through the lobby doors by the guardian Trolls. The visual contrast between the shimmering ethereal beauty of the women and the black leather solidity of the Trolls, who towered over them all; even Xe Doll, was stark and somehow affecting. A shaft of sunlight came down the front of the building through the skylights over the parking lot entry, and transfixed the five of them in beams of floating dust motes and a soft-focused glare and for an instant it was like a dream had broken through a dimensional barrier from another world into this one.
#
The moment collapsed as the five demi-goddesses swirled around the reception desk, showing their security badges and calling for help with their packages, asking for messages. But the ripples caused by their sudden advent in the Center, the shock wave of their appearance traveled on at the speed of rumor then bounced off the boundary layer of the Center's hermetically sealed mindspace and met itself coming back across the perceptions of the place's inhabitants. It created standing-wave interference pattern in the Admin Building's social waters that persisted for the rest of the day.
As the event wave spread beyond the ranks of the security personnel, the first people to find out, to notice the dollies, were the communication nodes in each office. These were not the official receptionists or comm clerks, but rather the one person in each office who seemed to know everything, who was tapped into the vast grapevine that spread fact and rumor instantaneously across the campus, and indeed, at times, around the world. Once the word reached the nodes, it was instantly available to the whole campus, although whether or not someone was tapped into the grapevine to receive it was another matter altogether.
Sappho Tarkasian, for example, was in the break room off the elevator lobby on Seven when Dolly, Xe, and Callisto burst out of the elevator, laughing, and creating a secondary shock wave just by their presence, regardless of whether anyone had heard about or seen the dresses. She stepped into the hallway just in time to see the three of them emerge into the open area of the Office, Dolly turning right to go toward her office on the North end of the Plush, while Xe and Cally went straight into the Protective Service's turf in the Maze. The M and Em captain just stood in the hallway gaping, packets of coffee creamer hanging forgotten in her fingers. She tossed the packets through the door behind her, hoping they landed on the counter, and followed the tall figure of her lover into the Maze.
Terry saw Dolly's sweet, round ass swinging confidently as she strutted up the raceway between the Maze and the Plush and stepped out the door of her office to get a better look. Then she swore as she noticed Xe and Cally within spitball distance of her office. She'd been notified, of course, as soon as the Center's charge account at Nordstrom's was used, and had a good idea--a very good idea--of what was coming even before she saw the women, but the reality somehow had more impact than she expected. She felt a little surge of desire rise up within her. But she fought it down and turned back into her office, shaking her head. If all five of them looked like that, there would not be much work done this afternoon anywhere in the building, and the traffic in this office would no doubt increase markedly with rubberneckers hoping to catch a glimpse of the dollies in their new dresses.
#
Terry had to smile. She always did whenever Dolly pulled one of her stunts. (And this was surely done at Dolly's instigation.) The little doll would have, as she always did, so thoroughly charmed everyone involved that there would be no complaint. Terry sighed. Not even from the Center's Director. She'd sign off on the bill and reckon the blessing on morale to more than offset the cost.
And, as a matter of fact, there was a fax in her machine's in basket. Five chain mail outfits, seventy-five thousand dollars. Five leather g-strings... (Gods! Did Nordstrom's even carry those, or did they bring them in especially for the dollies?)... a thousand dollars. Lunch for the five of them at two hundred dollars plus tip seemed almost paltry by comparison. She shook her head again, grinning. And the worst part was that Dolly could, if asked, pay the bill out of her purse without blinking. But Terry could deny the little imp nothing. She sighed and picked up her pen to scribble her signature across the bill and fax it to Accounting.
#
Dolly affected to not notice the prairie dogging wave of her coworkers who stuck their heads over the tops of the cubicles to gawk at her as she passed by. But she did notice, and it sent an electric thrill up her spine to be the center of so much deliciously sexual attention. She carried a ball of tension in her belly with her into the office and immediately after she closed her office door and set down her packages , she turned and closed the miniblinds to the outside, first the door and the sidelight, then the broader run of 4x6 double-pane windows. Then she did a little victory dance in the middle of her office, making soft whooping noises as she whirled and pranced.
Then she rummaged around in the Nordstrom's bags until she came up with an Izzy's bag containing Drummond's lunch. She walked through the connecting door between their offices.
And stopped in her tracks.