Chapter 2

It had been a dry month. Or a very wet month, depending on how you looked at it.

At the beginning, some of the other women were still wearing, just in longer skirts to conceal any runs. But they weren't fooling anyone: aside from the gals who'd moved to boots, any briefly-revealed ankle demonstrated with its Cuban heel and stitching exactly what they were coated with. And what feelings must be prancing their way up from toe-tip to thigh (and beyond). Marnie seethed; catfighting them all to get another pair was sounding more and more enticing all the time (and if her slit was becoming more and more slippery at that particular imagery, that was her own personal, private business).

Even Charlotte, who always seemed to have a secret stockpile, was eventually out, and no amount of licking her snatch was impelling her to reveal a hidden stash. Marnie believed her claims, as she knew Char would have invited her over for another "payment" session. Wearing them was intensely pleasurable, but in that absence merely running her own body over another woman wearing them was a close substitute. She could tell Charlotte got more out of it than she did when Marnie ran her hands, thighs, and tits up and down the other woman's nylon-clad legs before burying her face in cunt, but she couldn't resist the opportunity.

But even that was denied her, and Charlotte was starting to look as desperate as the rest of them. Customers were freaking out at the shortage-- sending emails and phoning customer support with hysterical (and often non-financial) offers if somehow new Special Blend could be obtained. Tyler, witnessing this activity, doubled the price and negated the employee discount on that particular item, but the laws of supply and demand were not in effect in this matter. There were rumors he was going to raise the price further, and perhaps even ban employee purchase altogether during the shortage in order to retain customers; he likely didn't realize how close his female employees were to mutiny and how that would affect his prospects for escaping the premises in one piece. Something had to give.

Paulo and the other guys at Receiving wore expressions which were a combination of bemusement and frustration at the dolled-up ladies lined up at the docks waiting impatiently for the delivery trucks to arrive.

The teamsters unloaded what looked to be an immense wooden box from the latest truck, and when the manifest was handed to Paulo to sign off, he glanced unconsciously up at the line of women who appeared for all the world to be passing judgment on his competence, his manliness, and even his expected lifespan based solely on the contents of that piece of paper. Freddy the Forklifter (as he was affectionately known), moved the crate to the staging area nearby, and a couple of the other guys brought forth the requisite crowbars.

Charlotte put on a hard hat and tore the manifest from a sputtering Paulo's fist. She ignored his protests and, apparently finding what she wanted, ran over to the staging area. The other women, believing what they so desperately wanted to believe, followed her closely en masse as the men present looked on in wonderment.

"Oh, dear God," exclaimed Arkady as she opened the crate, and Marnie elbowed her way to the front of the group to see what the girl's fascinated horror implied.

Hundreds of packages of ClassyLady Special Blend lay in neatly ordered stacks, but atop them lay something else. A slightly different sized package, with contents that Marnie at first imagined were hosiery as well. Surely there was the same diaphanous silken veil of the ultra-thin nylon, and the seams traversing the ... But wait a moment. The seam passed through twice, and formed an unmistakable outline-- and the length implied the elbow would be left far behind in favor of a tight fit at mid-bicep...

"Oh, dear God," Marnie echoed, her nipples already tightening into little buds and her knees slackening. "There are gloves, now."

ClassyLady was headquartered in a nondescript building in the small industrial section of town. A front office with a receptionist yielded the check of a list to see if Ms. Marnie Kandler had an appointment. And she did, in fact; once this was established, she was guided back to the proper office.

On her way, she caught a glimpse of a handful of office workers clustered around the water cooler. All women. All wearing. She wondered if there was a man in the entire premises ... and if there was, what in the world he thought about this place. The receptionist introduced her to Penny, the CEO's personal secretary, and then went back to sit in the entry foyer.

"She's with Felicia right now, but their meeting should be done any moment. You can sit there and wait, dear." Penny only spoke like she was in her fifties. In actuality, she couldn't have been more than thirty-five. "Would you like a lemon drop or a jujube?"

"No, thanks," Marnie replied, and as the secretary went back to her typing, Marnie reviewed the completely blank page which was her "notes" for the meeting. The questions she needed to ask were too obvious to be written down, and the questions she wanted to ask she didn't dare. Before she could renew that old argument in her head, the door opened and out strode someone Marnie vaguely recalled from old newspaper photos she'd researched seemingly-ages back: Felicia Major. Co-founder, and chief scientist.

The company's Director of Research and Development had pretty features, but she exuded "ice maiden" like a perfume. Her hair was collected in a bun which emulated the stereotypical librarian, and the horn-rimmed glasses poised on her nose did nothing to dissipate this imagery. She wore a laboratory smock over her street clothes, but Marnie could see that her calves were unfettered by trousers, though certainly covered with the corporation's star product. Even ice maidens were not immune, evidently, and Felicia returned Marnie's brief visual evaluation with one of her own. Her eyes may or may not have traced the curves of Marnie's legs from ankles to knees, but either way Marnie pretended not to notice.

"Nice to meet you, Felicia. I'm Marnie Kandler, and I'm the new Commodity Specialist for the ClassyLady line at LingerieGlance."

The severe blonde did not shake her hand. "I liked Sylvia."

Sigh. Both Charlotte and Sylvia had been let go and had moved to Seattle. If she forced herself to be objective, Marnie couldn't fault Management: Tyler had opened the door of one of the meeting rooms and been struck by a wall of musk and the sight of both women caressing each other's legs with glove-coated hands. Which was admittedly unprofessional and crude but still might have been forgivable in this liberal day and age if it hadn't been for the fact that the women were inverted and had their heads buried in each other's skirts.

Some said Tyler had fired them, not for their indiscretions, but because they had refused to let him join in ... but Marnie was of the opinion that unless they had twenty-dollar bills plastered all over their bodies the Old Man would fail to get aroused, even at an enticing sight like that. Certainly the going away party for both ladies, held privately, had been much more indiscreet, but there had been no men at all, let alone Tyler Rhaspid, on the invitation list.

"I'm sorry you feel that way. I liked Sylvia, too." A lot. She could do amazing things with her tongue that even the enthusiastic Charlotte had never properly emulated.

"I'm sure that's why you have her job, now."

"If you liked her so much, why didn't you hire her?"

"I tried, but she offended Darlene." Felicia walked away, three-inch heels clacking on the tile; Marnie had been dismissed. Bitch.

"How does one do that?"

Penny had pointedly ignored the entire exchange, but realized she was being spoken to, now. "Hmmmm?"

"What do I do in order to avoid offending Darlene?"

Penny looked around furtively, as if she were under observation for attempting to give away corporate secrets. "Always dress nice, dear, that's the key. And do not use the word 'addiction' to describe the allure of any of our products. Not even as a joke."

"Is that what Sylvia did?"

Penny didn't look like she was going to answer, but in any case a light chime peeped forth from her phone, and she answered it with efficiency. "Yes ... The new ClassyLady rep is here to see you ... Okay, I'll send her right in." Penny smiled in a motherly way and waved Marnie toward the door, possibly checking out her ass as she passed. It made Marnie feel dirty and vaguely incestuous.

"Welcome to ClassyLady ... Marnie, isn't it?"

This question erupted from the direction of the vast mahogany desk which filled one end of the room. Coming to her feet now was a thirty-something woman dressed in clothes whose stylings were sixty-something. Darlene Feinstein's apparel would have been at home in a Sears catalog during the Second World War, though here in the twenty-first century it looked dressy to the point of being prim.

Marnie nodded and took Darlene's hand briefly; it was warm and possessed of delicately-manicured fingernails that looked expensive. "Pleased to meet you, Ms. Feinstein."

"Oh, it's 'Darlene', darling, 'Darlene'. 'Ms. Feinstein' is my mother, and she's so dreary to contemplate..." She trailed off and gestured for the guest to take a seat.

Marnie was supposed to leap into a discussion of how pleased everyone would be if LingerieGlance could just get more Special Blend stockings and gloves. How LG was so gung-ho about the sheer wonders that they were willing to help ClassyLady improve their capacity by investing in a higher volume factory floor for them (for a small share of the company, of course). The higher prices LG was willing to pay-- and the still-higher prices Marnie was supposed to put forward in case the first offer was rebuffed.

Instead she asked why Darlene had started the business.

"Do you want the answers I give the newspapers, or the truth?" The executive offered her a lemon drop from a twin of the bowl on Penny's desk.

Marnie declined the bribe. "The truth."

"Good! I like your style, my dear. And that goes for more than just what you're wearing, though that is certainly stylish enough. You don't go overt, and I like that. Women today have confused 'blatant' with 'intriguing' in their clothing styles, and it's been such a loss I weep to see it.

"It's where ClassyLady fits into the big scheme of things, actually. We hail from an older time, when a woman put care into her appearance in a way utterly unlike the haphazard norm today. 'Foundation garments', so the phrase went, were worn as a matter of course, and love them or hate them they provided a firm structure to build on. And what is art without structure?"

Marnie didn't answer so obviously rhetorical a question, and Darlene went on like this for several moments. It was interesting to hear the way the woman thought-- she was obviously quite intelligent and had an interesting philosophical angle on the topic of fashion-- but it had been an entire morning since Marnie had played with her legs and pussy and she was getting a bit antsy. She needed to stop this barrage of the metaphysics and aesthetics of nylon stockings before she ran out of the room screaming or started pawing at herself right in this chair. Her chance was forthcoming.

"Marnie, dear, the world of women desperately needs our elegance, it needs our class. It needs less of the overtly sexual and more of the hidden treasure. A ClassyLady product is designed to be sensual."

"It's not sensual." It was that, of course, but there was something more. And from out of nowhere, a thought sprang from hindbrain to lips without pausing for evaluation first. It came out like an accusation, which perhaps it was: "It's medical."

Unpunctuated silence reigned for several hour-long seconds.

"You know, my dear, I have to hand it to you: you're the first non-employee who has drawn that conclusion. It's very refreshing. And exciting." Her eyes glowed. "Let me show you something." She touched a button and a projector lit as the lights dimmed slightly. Darlene fiddled with her mouse for a moment and a presentation appeared on the wall.

The initial slide was the ClassyLady logo superimposed on a stylized picture of a shapely woman of indeterminate age who was wrapped from ankle to thigh and from fingertip to bicep in translucent seamed black elegance. Though it was the last thing she wanted during this visit, her clit responded to the suggestive pose and the effect she knew the imaginary woman would be experiencing in that outfit.

The second slide showed financial information since the company's inception. The first three years were red ink, but after that profits began to roll in ... and still did. "As you can see, we're not paupers here. We have gone from negative to strongly positive profits in the last five years, and we've cycled the cash back into R&D."

Darlene showed Marnie the next slide and couldn't keep the smile from her voice. "This is an electromicrograph." She paused to look at her guest's blank reaction, and thought it worthwhile to elaborate. "A picture taken with an electron microscope. You can see the weave of the fabric here. Notice anything?"

Marnie did, though it had been years since she'd thought in detailed terms about textiles. "The weft is normal, but the warp..." Was there something funny in the yarn?

"Good eyes, my dear. It looks like two-ply nylon, but there's a tiny third ply wrapped around the other two. Large-radius fullerene strands, with lots of carboxyl bearings to make it more flexible. And the nodes..." Darlene had a self-satisfied smirk, now. "Well, the results don't show up well on the 'scope. I'll just show you an artist's rendering."

A computer-generated image showed up on screen. It was a long tube made of miniature interlocking hexagons, and every so often the tube was punctuated by spherical joints. The overall effect was a long string with a bunch of knots in it. Only the knots each had something sticking out of them, perpendicular to the string run. Tiny, almost invisible somethings.

"You see it. Nanotubes. Long ones, though the scale is skewed on that diagram. Electrically sensitive in both directions. And they semiconduct randomly."

Marnie shook her head. "I'm sorry, Darlene, but I haven't a clue what this all means. I'm a buyer for a web store, not a scientist. I only know how it makes m--" A little too revealing, there. "How it makes my customers feel."

Darlene adjusted her position in the massive leather chair, her knee rising into view as she crossed her legs. A hose-covered knee. Marnie began to salivate. "I see. And how do you-- ahem, your customers feel when wearing our products?"

Damn the bitch, she knew. She fumbled for the least revealing but most accurate phrasing. "Sensitive."

"Sensitive?"

The smirk was back again, and Marnie wanted to strike it off her. Or possibly remove it with a grinding, smearing motion, marring the elaborate lipstick job with her juices-- Calm. Focus. Get through this and promise yourself an entire night of nylon-coated bliss, okay? "Yes. Perhaps overly sensitive."

"You've had complaints?"

"Yes." From husbands and boyfriends.

"And the nature of the complaints?"

The women are becoming lesbian stocking sluts. "Some people have experienced discomfort."

"And the nature of this discomfort?"

"Undesired sexual arousal." There.

Darlene raised an eyebrow. "That's it? Our products are making women-- forgive the crude term-- horny, and that's a problem?"

Marnie reddened but returned fire. "Yes, when it's unasked-for! When it's incredibly distracting throughout the day, in meetings and when the kids are in the room, and when you start noticing other--"

Darlene paused to let her finish, but when she didn't the question spilled forth anyway: "Noticing other what?"

"Noticing other women. Their legs, their hosiery..." Darlene leaned back in her seat and put her feet up on the desk, crossing her legs at the ankles. Even in the imperfect lighting, it was apparent from the glimpse of seams that she was wearing her own product. Marnie's own legs slid together in sympathy, panties going soggy. She sighed and gave up, letting it all come out. "Wondering if they're wearing ClassyLady, too..." Sensation sang like a chorus of sparks up and down her inner thighs as they slipped over one another. She stared at Darlene's glistening calves...

"Yes, that's the effect we were going for. Ha!" Darlene stood up and walked around the desk. Marnie attempted to stand, too, but Darlene pushed down on her shoulders. Marnie was actually the larger woman of the two and began to struggle ... but then the entire effort was made obsolete when Darlene pushed her legs against Marnie's. As calf touched inner calf, Marnie gasped and parted her thighs to admit her welcome assailant. There was no arguing, now, with the way her pussy made her feel.

"Yes, my dear," drawled Darlene, "I suspected you were wearing them. Our studies show that very few women are able to resist putting them on again once they've tried them." She hiked up her skirt to reveal the full extent of her thighs. And her lack of panties.

"I ... don't ... unngh ... dammit, why does it have to feel so good?" Marnie pulled Darlene in close with her arms so she could entwine the other woman's lower body with the entire length of her limbs.

"It's an external nerve network. The nanotubes are thin enough to slip between your upper layer of cells, and they are shaped to make contact with any nerve endings in the skin. Not any of the pain or thermally sensitive nerves, of course. We've found protein markers on those nerves which allow us to shape the end of the nanotube to only target..." Her mouth was stopped in its exposition when Marnie covered it with her own.

The feeling of the hose as the two women's limbs swished against one another had the expected effect, and Marnie emitted a sensual moan around Darlene's invading tongue. Mmmm ... Lemony. The president, despite the fact that she had been the initiator, seemed no less smitten by the nylonic ... nanotubular ... semicon-whatever effect, and Marnie got the distinct impression the other woman was on overdrive and barely in control of her own actions by now. This she could understand. Entirely.

Quitting her job at LingerieGlance had been easy; while Tyler griped about losing "some of my best talent to a supplier", he was too pleased by Darlene's guarantee of a 30% drop in Special Blend costs to protest overmuch.