Chapter 15

“Well?” asked Bob, after they were back in their room. “Was it what you expected?”

“Never in a million years,” said Lacey. “All those guys! They wouldn’t give me the time of day in law school, and now they stand around salivating.”

“You do look a tad bit different,” he said.

“They all stared at my breasts,” she said.

“I stare at them all the time.”

“You’re allowed. They made me feel creepy. Except it was kind of fun, too. I don’t understand that.”

“We all want to be admired,” said Bob.

“They weren’t admiring me. They were raping me in their imaginations.”

“Rape might be too strong a word,” he cautioned.

“Sorry. I still get a little petrified once in a while. I kept thinking about all that crap my mother told me.”

“Most men are pretty harmless,” said Bob. “It’s mostly just in their minds. They wouldn’t actually try to do anything.”

“Are you kidding? Three of them asked me for a date before I told them what I was doing these days. My left hand hasn’t been looked at this much ... ever!”

“I thought it would be good for you to find out what other beautiful women have to go through,” he said, grinning.

“I think I panicked a little bit. I might have let on that I was having an affair with one of my bodyguards.”

“You told them that?!”

“I said you were the jealous type,” she admitted.

“Good grief,” he groaned.

“Well! They kept touching me, and standing close to me. And you were over by the wall. You weren’t protecting me at all! What was I supposed to do?”

“Say thanks, but that you aren’t interested?” suggested Bob.

“Oh. I didn’t think of that.” She pouted. “This is all new to me, Bob.”

“I know. I did actually get you away from them.”

“You could have done that ten minutes after we got there and I’d have been fine with it,” she said.

“Now, now. You came here to see all your old chums, remember?”

“Yes, but I didn’t think they’d turn out to be sharks, circling the lifeboat.”

He stared at her.

“Why on Earth not? You’re not a lifeboat at all. You’re probably the biggest, baddest shark in this particular ocean. You’ve got very big, very sharp teeth, my lovely. I’ve seen them in action, remember?”

“You always make me feel so good,” she sighed.

“Oh, Baby, I haven’t even started to make you feel good.” he leered.

He undid his tie and unbuttoned his shirt.

“Now, git nekked, girly. I feel like a little game of hide the sausage.”

“Ohhh,” groaned Lacey. “Don’t stop now, Bob! I’m almost there!”

“Don’t be greedy. You’ve had three orgasms and we really do need to get ready for the banquet.”

“I’m all sweaty,” she complained.

“This establishment comes with an honest to goodness shower,” he said.

“I don’t want to get my hair wet,” she said.

“They have those little shower cap things here,” he said. “I saw one in the bathroom.”

“You’re mean,” she grumbled. “You make me feel wonderful, and then you just stop.”

“I need to be able to hobble into the banquet on my own,” he said. “I got shot, remember? And now you want me to run a sexual marathon.”

“Yes I do,” she said, undaunted.

“Later, tonight,” he said. “I promise I will turn you into a puddle of satisfaction.”

“Okay, but I’m going to hold you to that.”

“Get dressed. Jessica said I’m going to like your dress.”

She teased him, emerging from the shower squeaky clean and then sitting naked on a bench in front of the mirror. She put on a fresh pair of thigh-highs, and then affixed her garter belt.

“Panty hose are a lot easier and quicker,” she observed.

“Those are a lot sexier,” he replied.

“You have no idea how you make me feel when you look at me like that,” she said. His complete attention was on her. He was standing there with one sock on and the other hanging from his hand, where it had been when she emerged from the shower and he froze.

“You have no idea how I feel when I look at you,” he sighed.

“Oh yes I do,” she said, looking pointedly at the front of his boxers, which were obscenely tented out.

She picked up a pair of powder blue laced panties.

“Leave them off,” he said, softly.

“You mean go to the banquet ... without panties?” She sounded shocked.

“Exactly.”

“But why?”

“Because I want to dance with you, knowing that if I reach under your dress, I can feel your naked pussy,” he admitted.

“That is so nasty, Bob!“ she gasped.

“I know,” he said, grinning. “I wouldn’t actually do that. Reach under your dress while we were dancing, I mean. Not in public, anyway. I just think it would be sexy. That’s all.”

“If I do that, it would mean I won’t have on any underwear at all,” she said. “I can’t wear a bra with the dress we bought.”

“Oh really?” His delight was unmistakable.

“Bob!” she chided. “If you had your way, I’d just go naked.”

“Actually, no,” he said. “If your nakedness were money, I would be known to the world as the most parsimonious of Scrooges. I confess I want you to be naked for me alone. But hints at what lies beneath clothes ... or doesn’t ... can make a man get a little crazy. I don’t mind if you make men a little crazy.”

“You are very strange,” she said, licking her lips.

“You’ll get used to me,” he said.

She stood up, clad only in hose and garter belt. She went to her suitcase and rummaged through it, extracting something black. It turned out to be a wide elastic band that went around her thigh and fastened a holster for the Kimber.

“You’re going to the banquet armed?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m going to the banquet practically naked,” she said. “Between the people who are already trying to kill me and a bunch of horny men who will, if you are correct, be thinking about ravishing me, I think being armed is probably called for.”

“Damn, woman,” he sighed. “I’m going to have to go out and find me a jock strap. You’ll have me hard all night long.”

She got the Kimber out of her purse, checked it expertly to ensure it was ready for instant use, and installed it in the holster. Then she stood, hands on hips, and posed for him.

“As long as you’re hard when we get back to the room,” she said.

She went and pulled a dark blue dress from a hanger. Stepping into it, she pulled it up over her hips and slid her arms through spaghetti straps that held the bodice over her breasts. The dress had no back at all, and went down to the hollow in her lower back just above where her butt started.

“Remind me to send Jessica a fruit basket,” said Bob, as he admired her.

She ignored him, rummaging in her suitcase again.

“Where are they?” she said, impatiently.

“Where are what?”

“The pad things you put in the front so your nipples don’t show,” she said.

“Are those the things I shined my shoes with and then threw away?” he asked.

She whirled, having taken him seriously. He held up his hands.

“Kidding,” he said.

“I need those, Bob. The fabric of the dress is too thin.”

He went to her and turned her to face him. He looked ridiculous, standing there in boxers and one dark sock, but she didn’t notice.

“Look, sweetie,” he said. “Calm down. You’re a beautiful woman. Everybody at this thing is an adult. If you’re a little sexier than the other women, that’s fine. In one sense, it’s even appropriate. Back then you muted your femininity. Now you can exhibit it. And you already have a boyfriend, so it’s not like you’re advertising. All you’re doing is being who you have developed into. You haven’t seen these people for ten years, right? And you probably won’t see them for ten more years. So who cares if they’re a little wigged out over being able to see whether you’re excited or not? Let’s just go have some fun. And when that’s over, I’ll bring you back here and make sweet love to you until you don’t even think about anybody else.”

She leaned her forehead against his, closing her eyes.

“You can just admit that you want to be able to see my nipples through the dress tonight,” she said.

“I desperately want to be able to see your nipples through your dress, tonight,” he said.

She opened her eyes and kissed him tenderly.

“Okay,” she said, when the kiss broke.

He held her back and looked her up and down.

“You look fabulous,” he said.

“My hair is a mess,” she complained. “And I’m not sure what makeup to wear with this dress.”

“Want me to go get Jessica?”

“Would you, please?”

Bob stepped across the hall and knocked. Jessica came to the door in running shorts and a tank top. Bob fleetingly thought that the pair of them together were proof that a woman didn’t need to be gussied up to look hot and make a man’s “interest” perk up.

“We need to borrow the fashion consultant,” said Bob. “She’s not sure what makeup to put on and doesn’t know what to do with her hair.”

“No problem,” said the deputy.

Thirty minutes later Jessica stepped back.

“I think you’re perfect,” she said.

Lacey’s hair was in a French braid that went to the middle of her naked back. A hint of rouge had made her cheekbones look more prominent, and dark blue eye shadow with silver flakes in it was visible whenever she blinked. A dark red, almost maroon lipstick finished the look.

Lacey stood and turned to examine herself in the mirror.

“I can’t believe that’s me,” she said, softly.

“Want me to prove it?” asked Bob.

“Later,” said Lacey. “I don’t want to mess up all of Jessica’s hard work.”

“Trust me, girl,” said the deputy. “Most of my hard work, as you put it, is simply you.”

Lacey wasn’t used to walking in high heels, so she tottered a bit on the three inch heels they’d gotten to go with the dress. Still, by the time they negotiated the elevator and walked to the banquet room, she was reasonably steady.

Her entrance into the room did not go unnoticed. Most eyes turned toward her in the game that many play in such circumstances. That game has been elevated to an art form in the media coverage of red carpet arrivals of celebrities at events. Here it was more low tech, more down and dirty. Little groups of people had formed, based on who knows what criteria, and they passed judgment on each person who arrived.

With Lacey’s arrival the comments were mixed. Just about everybody was still a little shocked by her basic transformation from a hard-bodied, scowling, asexual, Puritanical person into a soft, very pretty woman with obvious feminine, sensual disposition. When she walked into the banquet, her appearance was that of the quintessential Blond bombshell. The pupils of the males in the room dilated to a man, while the reaction from the women present ranged from jealousy to lust.

One man was heard to say to his colleagues, “Now that, boys, is a callipygian ass,” while one woman was heard to mutter, “And there is a new whore in Babylon.”

Those were the extreme ends of the spectrum, however. More towards the middle were those who simply expressed amazement at how much Lacey had changed. Most of them thought it was positive change.

There was one major exception, that being Barbara Silverstein. Babs, as she insisted people call her, was unhappy with life generally, and when she saw Lacey at the mixer, found something to be unhappy about specifically. The general nature of her displeasure stemmed from having been married three times, and divorced three times as well. Men couldn’t seem to figure out how to treat her as the princess she thought she was. She’d been a popular girl in high school, a cheerleader who got straight As. True, three of those As were the result of spreading her tender teenage legs for horny teachers, but they served to get her into a good college where she quickly learned that sex wouldn’t get you much in that setting. So she had to learn how to study.

Being a peculiar combination of brains, beauty, and a vapid personality, she figured out the system and did okay, earning a GPA of 3.2 in her undergraduate studies. In looking around to see what professions could be milked for the most money, she decided that engineering was too much work and medicine had too many body parts one had to remember. Lawyers got filthy rich, and they knew how to shield all that wealth from the government, so that’s what she went with.

Being a good looking young woman, she had used her looks as currency, getting what she wanted from a man by giving him access to her ... bank ... as it were. That worked really well, but once the vault had been plundered, and the bank manager has been discovered to be a shrew, most guys didn’t hang around. For such a smart woman, she never figured out why she couldn’t seem to find a decent man.

So she turned into the kind of woman who imagined all the good men were taken. It was this belief that “all the good ones are taken” that caused her to dislike other women, generally. The selfish bitches were keeping the good men to themselves. And if she wanted one, she’d have to take him away from whoever had him at present.

That behavior resulted in the latter two of her three marriages. The three divorces were all about the bank manager, again.

So when she arrived at the reunion, Babs was single once more. She made reasonably good money as an ambulance chaser, but if she could bag another husband who was a lawyer, then her income would better than double. Her only concern centered around the fact that her three ex-husbands hadn’t been lawyers, and so had gotten raked over the coals for alimony. If she married a lawyer as number four, she’d either have to figure out how to keep him, or find one who didn’t have any experience in divorce court.

Babs was sitting at the bar, drinking her second Tom Collins, when Lacey entered the room. She did not “make an entrance”, but Babs could feel the tension in the room change. She eyed the woman critically and was a little alarmed to find that, basically, there was nothing wrong with her at all. The bitch was gorgeous. So was the hunk whose arm she had. He was rugged looking, an all man type. She watched his eyes scan the room and assumed he was one of the bodyguards she’d apparently brought with her.

Bodyguards! What a joke. As if little Lacey Cragg could piss somebody off enough to make them want to do anything about it. So she was a prosecutor. Big deal. Babs faced prosecutors every day. Most of them were self-important schlubs who made cases off of somebody else’s work. Babs did all her own investigation. She worked for her thirty percent.

Babs reflected on the story that was circulating that Lacey had gotten shot, recently. Shot at was more likely, thought Babs. Assuming it wasn’t just one of those senseless drive-by shootings. And, of course the silly little bitch had tried to turn that to her advantage. Now she was spending people’s hard-earned tax dollars pretending to be in danger. And using a bodyguard for a date? That was just cheap.

The fly in the ointment was the couple that came in behind them. They were reputed to be US Marshals, too, also there to protect poor, helpless Lacey. Their presence meant more than any rumors Lacey may have started. Babs had to admit that the government was unlikely to assign her three guards unless there was some kind of real problem. But then again, the government was known to squander tax dollars all over the place. And Lacey was a federal prosecutor. That much, at least, was true. Some of the people she’d met at this reunion had talked about Lacey having done something recently involving the Russian mafia in New York. That was ridiculous. Everybody knew the mafia was dead and gone. And Russians? The only Russians who came to America were the defectors, right? Wasn’t opportunity flourishing in Russia these days? Didn’t that Putin guy open everything up and give everybody jobs and such?

Babs wanted to walk up to the bitch and slap her face. Who did she think she was, parading around in a dress that showed everything she had?

She looked at Bob again. He really was a pretty piece of eye candy. Lacey had been so tight-assed in law school that she’d never gone out with a man even once. There had even been a betting pool as to when she’d first step out on the ice. Nobody had won it, though, because as far as anybody could tell, she had nothing whatsoever to do with men other than studying with them. She couldn’t possibly have changed enough to know how to keep a man.

Babs decided she’d see if she could get her own “bodyguard.” And she knew exactly which one she wanted on the job.

They strolled among the tables, looking for their names on the little folded place cards at each dinner service. As they approached the table that turned out to have their places marked, Bob saw a man pick up two of the other cards on the table and replace them with two different ones. Then he carried the ones he’d removed to a neighboring table and put them down. It became obvious this man wanted to sit at this particular table. While Lacey was talking to some people who greeted her, he sidled around the table and identified the two “new” table mates as Steve and Nancy Flood. He also saw that his name plate had been moved to the other side of the table from Lacey’s. Next to hers sat Gerald Simpson’s.

A woman suddenly slid her arm through his and pressed her breast to his upper arm. He looked to see Babs smiling up at him.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Babs.”

“I know,” said Bob.

Her smile widened.

“Does my fame precede me?”

“No, Lacey told me about you.”