Chapter 7: Ripped Chicks, Rare Elk and Risk Assessment

“Folks,” Livia tells an enthusiastic audience, “our next routine has some room for audience participation. We’re going to need three volunteers of the hot, abundantly female and open-minded persuasion. They will have the opportunity to win an Estee Lauder Spring Season deluxe makeup kit priced at over four hundred dollars —”

“And weighting more than most computers,” I interrupt. “Jesus, what do women put in there?!”

The stock Mars-and-Venus humor is scripted, of course; the girls do ooh-and-aah as we show glossy pictures of the expensive makeup set, though. It’s an excuse, really — something they can claim they wanted badly enough to do raunchy shit on our stage.

Now, I told you we’re pretty strapped for cash at this point. You might wonder why we’re giving away three (yeah, spoiler, every contestant will end up getting one, cause this isn’t a real contest as much as a comedic screw-job and we don’t want the unfairness of that to be, well, real) very expensive makeup kits. The answer is branding: Livia feels it’s absolutely critical to the success of the show that we splash luxury to our volunteers.

Women who pose for Debonair are respected; women who pose for Club International are assumed (often falsely, but still) to be desperate. The reason, in part, is that Debonair is a credible luxury brand. We want to be one, too — a tasteless, silly luxury brand, but still one women get prestige for their involvement with rather than contempt. That’s the theory behind us nearly maxing out the company BastardCard, at least.

“Fair warning, though, ladies — the routine is a bit raunchy! So it comes time to answer that age-old question — are the babes of Savannah as brave as those Northern pansies back in Delaware?”

We get a lot of enthusiastic raised hands. There’s a lovely ten-second camera pan over the audience, that takes the time to focus in on multiple red-faced coeds in tight shirts jumping up and down to try to get our attention. Girls — good-looking girls — really want to get on our stage, and I’m going to pick the ones that get to! That feels just amazing to me.

I pick Norma Jean (who’s still wildly enthusiastic even after our earlier hypno-hijinks) as well as Shanice (a giggly, buxom black lady with a buzzcut in a vivacious, bright green rah-rah skirt and matching hoop earrings) and River (a short, slender, flat-chested, gorgeously tanned brunette with straight long hair, luscious legs and a pleated schoolgirl skirt that’s scandalously short). I knew she’d be our third the second I laid eyes on her — she’s been subtly flipping and twirling that plaid skirt all night to attract male attention in an adeptly premeditated way.

Shanice is nervous, inexperienced, excitable and cute. She has sharp green eyes — so rare for a black girl. Norma Jean is thoughtful, feminine and submissive — clearly able to enjoy playful humiliation and disrespect as long as it’s wrapped in a gag as an excuse. River is sultry, adventurous, egotistical, sexually aggressive and a bit pompous. None of this is accidental — I’m looking for three specific personality types in a specific order, for the gag we’re setting up to have its maximum possible impact. Physically, I’m also looking a little lower than I usually do — I’m usually a breast man, but this routine is all about the legs and asses. Livia apparently approves of my choices.

“I must say, Marc, nice choices! Okay, ladies — hold up your left hands like you’re going to take a citizenship oath.”

Livia smacks Norma Jean playfully on the ass as she climbs on stage. She giggles and blushes, but doesn’t react in any way negatively — she seems to take it as just another element of the pervading feel of naughtiness in the club this evening and all but revels in it. That’s great — it’s a subtle test to make sure she’ll be okay with a bit that comes later.

“I’m a volunteer for the Sexy Scandal Spectacular. I’m game for a giggle. I will probably lose my dignity, and I may lose my modesty, but I’m going to have an amazing time and leave with one heck of a story to tell!”

I make eye contact with each of the three volunteers, and use a bit of subtle Eyefucking to get them even more excited. It’s barely even needed; we’ve done a good job of getting the whole club into a raunchy mood, and I chose three that seemed the most receptive. Livia gets them all standing in a straight line, as Mimi rolls out a large wheeled shelf-stand covered up by red satin curtains with gold trim.

I take a thick, old-style fountain pen out of my jeans-jacket. It’s very ornate and aristocratic-looking, and also an elaborate prop. I turn to Livia and address her conversationally, delivering the scripted intro patter.

“Now,” I say, “this is my pickup pen. Do you know why it’s called that?”

Livia gives me a sardonic look. “Because you’re a pickup artist and you’ve taken the whole theme-branding thing to an extent usually reserved for comic-book supervillains?”

“No chance! It’s ‘cause hot girls look really sexy when they bend over to pick it up!”

“Why that specific pen?”

“Don’t stress the patter, baby.”

“So, what are we going to do with that pen?”

“Well, we have three absolutely gorgeous stunners up on stage with us. I figured we could have a little contest, to see which of them looks the hottest bending over to pick it up.”

Norma Jean looks appropriately offended at that — it is, by design, a bit insulting. Shanice seems a bit hyper and enthusiastic to be on stage, and River just arches an eyebrow at me and gives me a sultry, challenging stare. She gives off the vibe of a sexual carnivore — her favorite meat might be cock, but she kills before she eats. Her Aura isn’t weak, but it isn’t radiant either — I wonder if her sex appeal is more about status and competition with other women than actual sex. Of course, one doesn’t preclude the other.

“You know,” Livia says, “this contest does seem a bit cheap, tawdry and degrading.”

“Yup,” I agree. “Sure is fun, though!”

“Ooh,” Mimi says. “I love fun things!”

None of this dialogue is incidental. It’s a recurring theme in the Trips — that it’s good fun for girls to do things they’ve been told are tawdry, lewd or exploitative, as long as there’s a gag and a laugh track involved. You could go so far as to say drilling this into the college-age zeitgeist is Livia’s master plan — she wrote the dialogue with that intent.

In contrast to that reality, however, Livia’s persona is quick to put a more wholesome spin on my crass proposal. It’s not a believable spin, but that too is by design — we want to establish a frame of people accepting audacious buy-ins and using ridiculous excuses to paper over lewd activity; it’s part of the show’s appeal. “Now, girls, you need to know this routine isn’t just a bit of naughty fun. It’s got an important life lesson behind it that all of you can apply to investment, dating, home finance, career choices and countless other areas. We’re all about the edutainment here at the Sexy Scandal Spectacular — because, goodness knows, we’re not getting our redeeming social value anywhere else!”

The crowd laughs — Livia really cranked up her gonzo ringmaster charisma with the last line. When she continues, however, her tone is more serious. “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to introduce you to one of the most insidious and pervasive errors in human thinking: the idea that it has always been so, thus it will always be so. I want you to visualize a bowl of M&Ms sitting on your bedside table. Every morning, you take one out and eat it. You can assume that there will always be a candy to eat there, as there has always been a candy to eat there, ever since you put it there. But, of course, you know that isn’t true — with each candy you eat, there is one less in the bowl. Eventually, there will be none and you will need to refill the bowl or stop eating them. But that’s obvious — there are many other cases where this principle is equally in play, but far less apparent.”

I nod, and take over. “By definition, the first time any system fails, it has succeeded every time it was used before that first failure. It has a perfect record of success! How could it possibly fail?! It’s unthinkable! And yet, that is what every pattern break, every first failure is. Your car operates perfectly every morning until the first time it doesn’t. Life throws curveballs. The more you internalize this lesson, the better your life will be!”

Livia nods and grins. “Fortunately for all of you fine folks here tonight, our loyal Lord of Seduction, Marcelo Ambrose Knight, has prepared a special, interactive game to help everyone here tonight learn this important truth in a memorable way — a sexy, naughty game.”

I grin at Shanice. “Shanny-baby! You’re up first! Stand in the little green circle on stage, facing away from the audience, okay?”

She does so, giggling nervously. Mimi and I stand on opposite sides of her, facing the audience. Shanice’s busty, and has a thin white spaghetti-strap tank top on. It leaves her midriff bare — a taut, enticing expanse of dark teak skin. Her bra is thin and lacy, and I can barely make it out. She’s in strappy stiletto heels — bright green, matching her rah-rah skirt, eyes and earrings. I ask her to take off her shoes — I don’t want her to fall over with what we’re about to do. She smiles at me, enthusiastic but a bit nervous. “Sure! Are you a foot guy? I dated a foot guy once, so I don’t mind. I’d totally date you. Wait, did I say that out loud?”

Her toenails are painted a radiant green, to go with the rest of her outfit; her feet are, unsurprisingly, really nicely manicured overall. “Yes, baby, you did. But don’t worry about it. As for the feet ... with a girl like you, there’s no way a guy could focus on just one part — it’s the whole package that sells your beauty.”

She grins the wide, nervous grin of a genuine amateur almost deliriously happy to have this much attention. That surprises me — she really is a pretty lady, but I guess there are a lot of pretty ladies in a nightclub. I didn’t know black girls could blush, but Shanice does, and looks gorgeous doing it. River, conversely, looks like she bit into a lemon — she must be one of those girls that doesn’t like other girls getting attention.

I position Shanice a bit with my hands, first on her shoulders but then sliding down to gently run a hand over her ass. That’s not actually me being purely lecherous, though — it’s a magician’s misdirection. If I’m being honest, I’m quite nervous right now — this routine requires both some adept handwork and getting a bit more touchy with strangers than I usually would. I chose the volunteers carefully, though, and I’m confident they’ll all have fun with it rather than feeling used or uncomfortable. I catch Shanice’s gaze and hold it as I set the pen on the floor at Shanice’s feet. “Okay, baby, what you need to do is really simple. As soon as Mimi starts the music, you bend over and pick up the pen — but do it real slow and sensual, right?”

“Yeah! For sure!”

I give her a thumbs up, and she grins. I step away from her, and Mimi starts the music. It’s the instrumental bow-chick-a-wow-wow type, not a recognizable vocal track — we want to set the cheesy-sexy mood, but not turn this into a music video.

Shanice isn’t really sensual — she’s giddy, daring and having fun. None the less, she does look over her shoulder and give the audience a sexy, playful little wave before bending over slowly to pick up the pen — and she looks fantastic doing it. She picks up the pen, lifting it slowly as I instructed her. As she lifts it, however, in perfect time her skirt also lifts — I hooked the pen into a tiny invisible thread on the stage when I set it down, and I used the ass-grab as an excuse to hook another thread to the back of her emerald rah-rah skirt. Turns out she’s wearing some lacy, moderately translucent green panties — and, like many black girls, she has a fantastic ass.

The audience laughs — it’s a pretty basic Benny Hill gag, but most people haven’t seen it done in real life. Shanice is funny, too — she’s totally oblivious to the skirt-lifting, but trying hard to be a crowd-pleaser. She re-positions her legs to spread them, and — fully leaned-over with a hand on the floor, she waves at the audience from between her own legs. She’s totally unaware, since the front of her skirt is still in place, that we can see all of her ass and — once her legs are spread — faint hints of beaver, too.

She’s in the process of standing back up when she starts to get suspicious at all the audience hooting, laughter and catcalls. Fortunately, we foresaw this. Mimi presses an RC switch. The pen suddenly glows and vibrates loudly — honestly, for lack of a better term, it roars. Shanice, already nervous, screams her lungs out — not a little yelp, but a full-throated howl. She jumps about wildly, and the invisible thread holding her skirt up snaps. It’s an almost caricaturally feminine reaction to a horror movie jump scare, but it’s also totally genuine — she was already riding an adrenaline wave, after all, before we decided to scare the shit out of her.

Shanice is screaming and dancing about like there’s Bolivian fire ants crawling up those lovely black legs, and her chest is flying every which way so violently one of the spaghetti-straps on her top snaps. You can understand, I’m sure, why I wanted her strappy stilettos off. She finally runs up to me and leaps into my arms aggressively, clutching me and wrapping her legs around my waist to hold them off the ground. Her emerald eyes are almost impossibly wide.

Shanice is two inches taller than me and weighs a fair bit more than my slight frame does, too. None the less, I work out, and it pays off here; my muscles strain and cord, but I manage to hold Shanice up smoothly and pass it off to the audience as effortless in body language. That makes me feel really proud, honestly, and my intuition suggests to me that Shanice is the type to be impressed with a bit of strong-man chivalry.

“Why hello there, little miss! Fancy seeing you here.”

The coed just clutches me for a few seconds. It’s oddly intimate, and I can feel her heart pounding against my chest. Finally, her adrenaline-soaked brain starts to come down from the surge. “Baby, it’s okay,” I tell her. “Just a little prank, nothing harmful. We might be naughty fellas, but we keep our audience safe!”

She grins maniacally. “You ... you are a bastard, and I think I love you!”

I smile. “I get that exact response a lot.”

A second or two passes with her still clasped tight against me, and I pat her lightly on the shoulder. “Okay, baby. Time to let go.”

Her eyes flash playfully. “Don’t wanna,” she tells me. “If you can get your cheap thrills, I can get mine too.”

Seems fair, honestly. The audience laughs at that — the women more than the men. She wants something before letting go, so I kiss Shanice. It’s on the lips, but sensually rather than lewdly at first — the lewdness comes from her side, as she sticks her tongue in my mouth. Nice! I know she’s acting on adrenaline, but I still love that she’s got the ego to take the sexual lead with me on stage, even if the audience can’t see anything. Finally, she loosens up and we separate. The women in the audience all give her a great big cheer, and she grins like a maniac as she walks back to her place in the lineup.

Next up is Norma Jean. Her heels clack-clack-clack on the hardwood stage floor as she walks up, and her hips swivel sexily. When she reaches us, she takes off her heels just like Shanice did — giving the audience a sneak preview of her bending over. She looks right up at me, catches my gaze vanishing into the cavernous abyss of her cleavage and winks playfully. The audience laughs. As she unfastens her heels, her bust sways back and forth slightly in the tied-off plaid belly-shirt — but that’s not the real focus of my attention for long. Her white designer jeans are the tightest I’ve ever seen, being all but painted on and highlighting every curve of her long, slender legs and elegantly sensual hips.

I set the pen back on the ground, and she stares at it suspiciously. “So what happens when I touch the pen?” she asks archly.

“You have absolutely no idea,” I tell her bluntly. “It could very well be ... shocking. That’s the philosophical point of the exercise — and what makes the game so exciting. Whatever happens, though, try to make it sexy and not lose your cool.”

“Do I get a kiss when I finish, too?”

“Perhaps. If you still want one.”

This is going kinkier than we planned — kissing Shanice was an improv, since she wanted some kind of thrill and I wanted to please her after scaring the hell out of her. Norma Jean turns to the audience and gives them a big grin and an over-head wave, getting a loud cheer in response. Mimi and I stand on each side of her, just like we did with Shanice.

The music this time is subtly different. It’s still an instrumental, hip-swinging “strippers, fuck yeah!” beat, but the bass is heavier and more sonorous in subtle ways, and there’s a slight mix of chimes and tubular bells that is dissonant. Given how we shocked and scared Shanice and then told Norma Jean explicitly she has no idea what to expect, there’s some actual tension now — the music does a great job conveying that in a manner that comes in just under most people’s conscious perception.

Norma Jean turns around, dancing slightly to the music, and leans over slowly to pick up the pen. She smiles and really milks it. The seam of the jeans is deep in her ass crack, perfectly showing the curvature of each cheek; white denim conforms to the inch-wide thigh gap between her slender thighs, letting me make out the intoxicatingly plump hill of her taint and vulva from behind. The weathered brown leather of the brand label at the top of the jeans morphs into some kind of patriarchal mark of ownership in my fevered sexual imagination.

She reaches out to touch the pen — but I can see she’s nervous. She pokes it gingerly a bit to see if it’s going to roar at her, then looks out at the audience, smiles and tenderly picks it up. She looks over her shoulder and smiles at me, nervous but proud, her long blonde hair dangling down from her bent-over posture to pool on the varnished oak floor below her. She’s clearly very focused on the idea that the pen is a trick prop, in some way, and seems to be trying to figure out the puzzle or outwit our game at the same time she milks her farmer’s daughter appeal for the audience.

That’s when I take one hand, spread the thumb and fingers and give Norma Jean a really solid goosing. It’s rough, but (I hope) not enough to be painful. My thumb slides into the deep denim crease of her ass-cheeks, and my fingers slip right between her legs to cup her vulva. She hollers, genuinely shocked, and stands ramrod-straight instantly. Her mouth is open, her eyes wide. Our cameras get her reaction shot in slow motion, and it’s pretty glorious. The pen goes flying, skittering across the wooden stage. A large portion of the audience gasps.

I’m not normally a “wandering hands” kind of guy. The football jocks at my high school all were, and I never wanted to be a meathead like them. Across all my sexual conquests, I’ve goosed exactly one woman before this — we had a very playfully combative dynamic that worked its way up to where I could do things like that, and it felt okay, and she enjoyed it.

So I’m honestly pretty nervous right now, inside — but of course, I don’t show a trace of that externally. I honestly wonder if Livia put this in the script to test my limits a bit. That can’t be the only reason, though — it does fit naturally into the gag. In spite of my discomfort with the act, I also can’t deny getting a kinky thrill out of it — a flow of blood zeroes in on my groin like a heat-seeking missile.

“Well,” I tell Norma Jean glibly, “you did lose your composure, but you looked really sexy losing it — so we can give you half marks.”

Everyone laughs uproariously. I scan the audience — a few people, mostly women, are pretty offended that I groped Norma Jean, but the vast majority are taking it in good humor.

Norma Jean’s pissed off, obviously, since women tend to get pissed when you goose them — especially if it’s on stage, in public. Her cheeks flush a brilliant crimson, and she clenches her fists. She’s angry and humiliated — but she’s also wildly aroused, and a bit ashamed of that; I can see her struggling to conceal it. Fuck, after a second or two, I can smell her arousal — I definitely picked the right girl for this little stunt! Emotionally paralyzed, she falls back on the default societal script in this situation and bitch-slaps me across the face, hard enough to leave a red handprint. It stings like a motherfucker, but I just take it and grin back at her.

“I’m wondering if I still want to kiss you or knee you in the groin,” she finally snaps. It seems performative, though — the only reason she’s angry is because a girl is expected to be angry after you goose her.

“I get that a lot, too. Word of advice: you get more fun out of the kissing than out of the kneeing, in the long run. It’s up to you, though.”

She picks option three, and just turns away primly. “On a scale of one to ten, I’m gonna have to give your conduct a ... zero.”

The audience laughs; I do too. Fair cop — that’s clever. She walks back to her place in line, albeit with a bit more sensuous hip-swiveling than one might expect from a genuinely panicked or aggrieved lady.

Our final contestant is River, the queen of the club (in her own mind, at least). She’s wearing a tight black shirt with an irregular pattern of multi-colored dots — it reminds me of the title sequence to Dr. No — though obviously it’s her short, pleated plaid skirt that really captures the eyes. She clearly has no bra on — the avant-garde shirt is thin, and I can see her nipples though it. She probably can’t wear one; she doesn’t even have an A-cup, not that the absence reduces my enthusiasm — I can visualize her squirming as I tease her nipples with my tongue.

Her thighs are lovely — thicker than twiggy Norma Jean’s, but perfectly fit, gorgeously tanned and intoxicatingly bare. She’s living, walking proof that short girls can have fantastic, sexy legs. Her lips are covered with glossy red lipstick, and she has a black satin bow-tie holding her hair in a loose ponytail. Her hazel eyes are dominant, immediately demanding the respect and deference of those around her. I meet her gaze and don’t look away, challenging her.

River licks her glossy red lips in a very overtly sexual way, and steps right into my personal space, golden eyes staring at me. She’s aggressive but intimidated — maybe not at being groped, but in wondering how things might escalate from there or what we might pull next — but she’s also an adventurer at heart, and not the kind of girl who backs down. I really nailed the selection for this bit!

Her tone is sultry and conversational, even if the words are accusatory. “So, are you going to molest me too, shorty?”

“No comment,” I tell her playfully.

“That’s okay,” she says. “I like unexpected things.”

She’s trying to win — both me and the makeup set, I guess, or just the contest in general. She’s incredibly competitive, and proud of herself.

The music is even more perfect this time — still a sexy beat a girl can strip to, and it fits in with the other two pieces, but some of the notes are just off, dissonant and jarring, giving the whole number a tense feeling of wrongness. It’s like we asked Goblin to write an instrumental stripper anthem.

(We didn’t, but we did look at the soundtracks of both Halloween and Suspiria and ask how much of that we could capture while still having something that sounds at least superficially like the kind of synth beat girls’ clothes fall off to on Cinemax. Mimi got the not-Goblin custom track from a MIDI composers’ BBS, as a freebie from an amateur fan. It probably helps that her profile pic is her as the bitchy security guard, and she gives out the wet tee shots from later in that show to anyone who flirts nicely and literately with her online without being creepy.)

River takes a second to glare at Norma before waving to the audience, flanked by Mimi and I. She twirls around, flaring her skirt — and flashing a pair of brilliantly red tanga-style panties. She might be flat up top, but she’s got a fantastic little bubble butt with perfectly smooth tan skin and great curves. I can make out the tan lines of a rather scandalous thong bikini bottom under her satin tanga panties. As she leans down to pick up the pen, she puts her hands on her knees. The short skirt rides up even farther, getting a huge cheer from the audience — though they obviously can’t make out the details I can, standing two feet away. Viewed through her legs from behind, her vulva looks like a closed tulip bulb, radiantly highlighted by that red satin fabric against her brown-toasted skin. I’m suddenly, absurdly happy we’re getting this all on high-quality 35mm film.

River copies Shanice — flirting with the audience from between her own legs spread in a V. She pulls off her bow-tie hairclip and lets her long, glossy black hair fall free, shaking it out like a glamour model. She strokes the pen with it, running it over the floor and flinching only ever so slightly as static electricity crackles. She reaches out with long, blood-red press-ons and gingerly picks up the pen...

And then Mimi pies her ass.

Seriously, our bubbly blonde bimbo reaches inside the curtained rack we rolled out and pulls out a great big chocolate pie piled high with whipped cream, and in one smooth gesture pulls River’s skirt all the way up and slams it into her perfect little ass, mashing it around and between her legs before letting go. As soon as she does this, the sinister music cuts out with a record scratch, there’s a whomp-whomp sad trombone sound effect and jaunty, whimsical comedy music takes its place.

Mimi waited until River was looking out at the audience to do this. When her ass gets plastered, she flinches and freezes briefly, but doesn’t show a lot of initial reaction — she was clearly ready to be groped and is trying to play it all cool and aloof. The audience, conversely, is puzzled for a second ... and then bursts into laughter — really crazy, over-the-top laughter powered by the mood whiplash we intentionally created.

River’s face freezes as she tries to figure out what the fuck just happened, and what she’s feeling as cold whipped cream and chocolate mousse slide down her enticing inner thighs and run along the firm curves of her shapely legs. And, may I say, those legs that have looked so enticing to everyone present all night, look even better adorned with long streaks of cream and chocolate. The spectacle is absurd, but still bizarrely very erotic — especially when paired with the baffled look on River’s face that only gradually changes to mortified embarrassment. She looks at me, and slowly realizes I never touched her — and then she glances at Mimi, who giggles guiltily and gives her a playful little finger-wave. River’s cheeks turn crimson.

Clumps of filling, cream and pie crust land on the floor at her feet with audible plops. Panicked, she grabs her own ass with a hand and gets a handful of pie-goo. She stands up straight, raises it slowly to her head and smells it, trying to figure out what it is. She’s thankful, I guess, that she didn’t somehow shit herself when she identifies the goop as chocolate pie filling. “What the hell! You ... you ... you pied my ass.”

“Yup,” I agree.

This honestly, really puzzles her — and her bafflement drives the crowd wild. I guess she never saw Kentucky Fried Movie. “You. Pied. My. Ass.”

“We’ve covered that part, possum,” Livia tells her airily. “Try to move on from it.”

She’s not, though. She’s starting to get predictably angry — she is a bit pompous, after all, and doesn’t like being deflated. “I thought this contest would be sexy, but now I just feel silly!”

Livia nods sagely as the queen of the club squirms about, trying to clean chocolate mousse out of her ass crack. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Norma Jean watching her with unusual interest — and squirming sympathetically a bit herself. “Sex is as inherently ridiculous as it is pleasurable. To truly savor the latter, you must accept and embrace the former.”

“Very profound,” River tells her dryly, blushing furiously. “You’re trying to tell me you’re teaching me some important life lesson by shoving a cream pie up my skirt?!”

She is, though. It’s very much a real life philosophy to Livia, and when it actually settles into my mind, more than a bit revelatory to me as well.

“Yup!” I confirm with jovial good humor, and she can’t help but smile at my sheer persistence.

River shakes her head. Norma and Shanice giggle at her expense, and she glares at the duo. “I need to say, this is messing with my sense of normalcy just a wee little bit. I repeat: you pied my ass!”

I give Mimi a meaningful look, then reply to River. “Now, tell me: if we had pied you in the face, would that be more the kind of thing you would expect and could process?”