Undercover

[brave_archer]

So glad to see you continuing this one (and hopefully your other amazing stories on the site too!) This story is so well realized and Harriet's transformation has been a pleasure to read. Looking forward to more!

[JohnAubrey]

Harriet walked into the changing rooms, a reverberating chorus of totally naked, totally naked, totally naked playing over and over in her head like an earworm. Had she really just said that out loud?

She was greeted by an austere woman, tall, thin and angular, her hands crossed limply in front of her body. She looked like a praying mantis, but with none of that insect’s charm, warmth or generosity of spirit.

“May I help you?” the woman asked, in a disdainful voice that suggested she would much rather not.

Harriet, still distracted by her own boldness in making her surprise confession to Jessica, was brought to a halt by the woman’s acid tone.

“Um, yes. Yes. I’d like to try on some clothes,” replied Harriet, her voice trailing off as she looked down and remembered that her hands were empty.

The woman stared at her and, although her expression did not change, with a mere flicker of her eyes she managed to convey the impression that she thought Harriet was a badly-dressed simpleton.

“Are you looking for some more athleisure,” the woman said, enunciating the last word like she found it distasteful, “or do you need assistance finding something… nice?”

Jessica appeared by Harriet’s side, her arms full of expensive dresses.

“She’d like to try these on, actually,” Jessica said firmly. “I hope that won’t be a problem?”

The assistant did some quick mental arithmetic based on the number of items Jessica carried and, like a sallow waxwork coming to life, her face twitched. A disquieting, insincere smile jerked into place.

“But of course! Please, follow me. All the changing rooms are presently occupied but we have a couple of seats free on the banquette in the waiting area.”

The smile wavered as Harriet sat down and - for the first time - the woman seemed to notice how broad Harriet’s shoulders were and how much space she occupied. Evidently her hatred of sportswear had blinded her to this fact. Until that very moment, perhaps it had never even occurred to her that some women actually wore gym clothes for the purposes of exercise.

Harriet’s back and arms spread across most of the two seats indicated; barely any room was left for Jessica.

“Ah! There’s normally… You are… I shall try to find a chair,” said the woman, turning and bustling away down the corridor.

Harriet looked sheepishly up at Jessica.

“These seats aren’t really designed for me. I don’t think there’s enough room for us both to squeeze in. I’ll just stand until another seat becomes free. You should sit down instead.”

“No, no, it’s fine; you stay there. I’ll just sit on your lap,” Jessica replied, quickly.

Jessica abruptly sat down, the bundle of dresses in her arms covering them both like a warm blanket. Rather than sit on Harriet’s lap, Jessica settled herself on top of Harriet’s left thigh, upon which she wiggled around for some time, apparently trying to adjust her position.

“Am I comfortable? I mean, are you comfortable?” Harriet asked.

“Hmm? Oh, yes, yes, very,” said Jessica absently, still squirming.

“I can move slightly, if that would give you more room?”

Harriet raised her left foot off the ground and cautiously extended her leg until it was straight to ensure that none of the dresses got snagged and stretched over her knee; then she shifted her legs further apart and placed her foot back down.   

As Harriet adjusted the angle of her legs her left quad shifted and surged upwards with an epeirogenic movement. Jessica rose up by a couple of inches and went rigid; her own legs parted like branches ramifying from the trunk of Harriet’s thigh, before quickly retracting.

Jessica’s whole body shivered.

“Are you okay?” asked Harriet, concerned she had inadvertently hurt Jessica.

Jessica wiggled on top of Harriet’s thigh again, and pressed her back more firmly into Harriet’s torso. Harriet could feel how tense Jessica’s shoulders were as they pressed against her pecs.

“Yes!”

“It can’t be comfortable for you - I suppose my quad is pretty solid to sit on. I’ll stand up and you can have my space on the banq-”

“No! No… Right here is good. I’m fine right here.”

“Oh, okay.”

The waiting room was silent.

The assistant had not returned, and was either struggling to find a chair or was perhaps busy biting the head off her mate. Harriet glanced at the other shoppers, wondering if she and Jessica had attracted any attention, but no one had so much as looked up from their phones when they had first entered the room, and they all continued to remain entirely uninterested in the new arrivals.

Jessica scooted forwards slightly along Harriet’s thigh, then arched her back like a stretching cat before slowly relaxing her body, reclining limply against Harriet.

Harriet looked down and caught a glimpse of goose pimples on the back of Jessica’s neck; she could feel Jessica’s fingers clench into a fist and press into her right thigh.

Jessica’s head tilted back to rest on Harriet’s shoulder, almost as if she had settled in for a nap.

Harriet stayed as still as she possibly could. She didn’t want to move. More importantly, she didn’t want Jessica to move. After a while it dawned on Harriet that she had taken her commitment to immobility to the extreme and had been holding her breath ever since Jessica had relaxed against her. In need of oxygen, she tried to start inhaling and exhaling again as gently as possible, to completely minimise the chances of disturbing Jessica.

Jessica remained in repose, her body warm and soft. Her head turned to the side and nestled against Harriet’s neck; her hair tickled Harriet’s chin, her perfume likewise Harriet’s nose.

Was the waiting room silent?

Harriet’s heart was beating as loudly as a particularly exuberant timpanist playing the opening of Also sprach Zarathustra. She once again glanced nervously at her fellow customers, fully expecting someone to look up and ask where that drumming sound was coming from.

But no one else seemed aware of the noise that filled her world.

Jessica wiggled her hips again, slower this time, more deliberate in her movements, and gave a little sigh.

“I can hear your heart beating,” Jessica murmured.

Before Harriet could respond, a shopper emerged from the changing rooms and the assistant reappeared to lead one of the waiting women inside.

Everyone else shuffled along one seat. There was now room enough for them both to sit side-by-side on the banquette.

Neither Harriet nor Jessica offered to move into the empty space.

The assistant returned again and gestured pointedly at the vacated seat. Harriet paused for a moment, weighing up her options. She didn’t want to displace Jessica, but maybe there was a way they could both move along together.

“Do you want to go for a ride?” she whispered to Jessica, who gave a start.

Harriet wrapped her arms around Jessica’s waist and pulled her friend’s body tightly against her own until she was satisfied that she was safely held in place. Then Harriet stood up, easily lifting Jessica into the air, smoothly stepped to the side, and sat back down again in the free seat.

The entire manoeuvre was completed so quickly and quietly that no one else in the waiting room even noticed what had happened - a breathless gasp from Jessica as she had been hoisted into the air and a rustle of material as she nearly dropped her armful of dresses had been the only noises.

For a few moments they both sat still and silent, until Harriet realised that she was still hugging Jessica around the waist; she started to let go but Jessica made a soft, disapproving sound and placed her hands on top of Harriet’s own.

Hidden under the blanket of dresses they stayed in this position, Harriet’s powerful arms around Jessica’s slim waist; Jessica’s hands resting on top of Harriet’s.

Gradually their fingers intertwined. 

Several happy, laughing women, obviously friends, exited the changing rooms in a group and the assistant began to usher the waiting shoppers into the available cubicles. She eventually returned for Harriet and Jessica.

Jessica stood up, clearing her throat and gathering the dresses tightly against herself.

“It’s very warm, isn’t it?” she said to no one in particular, fanning her face with a hand.

The assistant led them down to the end of the corridor and the last available room. Harriet held the door open for Jessica to walk in first and then followed her.

As Jessica began to hang up the dresses, Harriet hesitated by the half-open door in an agony of indecision, unsure if Jessica intended to stay inside or wait outside the changing room, not wanting to make her feel unwelcome but also afraid of being presumptuous.

“Don’t forget to close the door!” reminded Jessica.

Harriet’s hand trembled as she slipped the bolt into the lock. She took a deep breath and turned around. Jessica was hanging up her own blazer now, and Harriet took the opportunity to admire her arms and shoulders again. The extra muscle certainly suited Jessica’s svelte frame - she looked not only stronger but shapelier as well; as she raised both hands to flick back her hair from her shoulders, the definition in her biceps immediately became more pronounced.

Jessica turned around with an excited look on her face.

“So which one do you want to try on first?”

Harriet’s eyes quickly flitted from Jessica’s arms to the dresses.

“The white cut-out one,” Harriet replied impetuously, not really caring at all, forgetting why she was even shopping for clothes in the first place.

“Good choice! Like I said, this one will really show off your abs. It’s very ‘Greek goddess’, I think, like a sexy version of a toga.”

“Chiton,” said Harriet, automatically.

“Excuse me?”

“Um, or a peplos, maybe.” Harriet noticed the confused look on Jessica’s face but she carried on robotically, unable to stop herself. “The toga was worn by Roman men.”

“Hey, I thought you claimed you didn’t know anything about fashion?”

“Modern fashion. If you want to know about Archaic Greek fashion, I’m your woman,” said Harriet. “I’m a bit of a history nerd, I’m afraid.”

“Buff and brainy?” smiled Jessica. “You’re making the rest of us look bad!”

Harriet mumbled something unintelligible but intended to be self-deprecating, trying desperately to hide her delight at this suggestion.

Jessica sat down on the bench, crossed her legs daintily and rested her hands on her knee. She looked expectantly at Harriet, who tried to work out what was expected of her before she finally remembered where they were and what she was doing there.

“The dress! Yes, I’ll… um… time to try it on...”

Harriet started to reach for the hanger.

“Aren’t you going to take off your jogging b-”

“Oh! Yes! Yes, I should um…”

Jessica, perhaps sensing the note of panic in Harriet’s voice, uncrossed her legs and moved as if to stand up.

“Would you prefer it if I waited outside? I can give you some priv-”

“No, no, it’s, erm, it’s fine. I’ve just never… done this before. Shared a changing room, I mean - not even with my sister. I wasn’t sure of the etiquette; I thought you might want to leave, you see, and I didn’t want-”

“Do you want me to leave? I can leave, if-”

“No, please stay. It will be easier! There are so many dresses to try on and if you had to keep going in and out all the time, we’d be here forever,” said Harriet, trying to play it cool.

She was relieved to see that Jessica looked pleased by her suggestion.

“I was thinking the same thing!”

“Okay. Good. So...”

“Actually, when you think about it, the first time we met, well… I’ve already seen you n-”

Jessica’s voice trailed off, her eyes widening as Harriet pulled down her jogging bottoms.

Aware of Jessica’s stunned silence, but not certain what had caused it, Harriet looked down and suddenly remembered her unfortunate choice of underwear.

“Oh god! Erm, sorry, I haven’t got round to doing the laundry for a while. All my other underwear is sweaty from the gym and, no, you didn’t need to know that, did you? Oh god! Um. This was the only clean pair I could still fit into. They’re hideous, aren’t they?”

Jessica looked dazed. She gave her head a little shake.

“Sorry, what?”

“My granny pants.”

Jessica continued to look confused. She shook her head again and finally seemed to realise what Harriet was talking about.

“Those?” she asked. “Oh, we’ve all got a pair like those!”

Harriet relaxed and laughed with relief.

“But you looked so shocked when you saw them!”

“Not at those - at your legs!”

“My legs?”

“They’re huge! And when you stepped forward, all the muscle in your thighs sort of… moved like it had a life of its own. And look at all those veins!”

“I’ve been making some tweaks to my diet; I’ve been trying to lean out a bit. I guess it’s paying off because I’m definitely getting more vascular,” said Harriet, running her hands over the anfractuous veins in her quads. “But my legs aren’t that big,” she continued, contradicting the abundant evidence to the contrary.

“They. Are. Huge,” insisted a rapt Jessica, emphasising the last word with relish.

“I guess I’m used to seeing them every day - I sort of take them for granted,” Harriet said, thinking out loud. “It’s weird - when I started working out and I first noticed the muscle definition in my legs, I felt massive. And now my thighs are so much bigger and I can’t even fit into my old pairs of trousers, but I can look at myself in the mirror and still feel… small.”

“Small! You know I mentioned my personal trainer earlier? Her thighs are nowhere near as big as yours and everyone at the gym calls them her ‘man crushers’.”

“I suppose I’m used to feeling small. Being ignored or overlooked, you know? Made to feel insignificant.”

“It’s not your fault if other people can’t appreciate you for who you are. I think you’re amazing.”

“Thank you,” said Harriet, in a small voice.

“And your legs, they’re definitely a pair of ‘man crushers’ if ever I saw them. Do you… do you have a nickname for your legs?”

“I’ve never really thought about giving them one.”

“So… you don’t call them your ‘man crushers,’ then?”

Harriet wrinkled her nose.

“No, I’ve never called them that.”

“And… have you? Ever crushed a man with them, I mean?”

“No! That’s not something I’ve ever… I’d ever…” Harriet stumbled and stopped, lost for words.

“I was just being silly. I didn’t really think you’d be going around crushing men with your muscles,” said Jessica. “Although you totally could.”

Embarrassed, Harriet turned to reach for the dress again.

“I think you’ll have to take off your sports bra,” Jessica interjected. “The way the dress is cut, your sports bra will spoil the lines of it. You won’t get a true sense of the fit.”

“Oh, of course,” said Harriet sheepishly.

Lowering her arms across her torso, Harriet grabbed the underside of her bra with both hands and pulled upwards. She had done this countless times before, yet repeated practice had never made it much easier, her improving dexterity constantly outpaced by the growth of her lats.

In theory, it should have been easier to remove the bra today, as she wasn’t all sweaty and sticky from the gym, but her fingers were clumsier than usual and she got the rhythm all wrong, moving too fast initially and then trying to slow things down, worried that she might look too eager to undress. Unfortunately the loss of momentum caused the bra to tangle around her head and become stuck to her face like a giant cobweb.

By the time she finally removed it, she felt even more flustered and awkward than she already had, her hair now unkempt and wild. How could something she usually managed with relative competency be made so much more difficult by the fact someone was watching her do it? She threw the sports bra to one side, a little crossly.

Harriet tried to tidy her hair and finally looked back at Jessica, who had clasped her hands tightly together like she was praying. Jessica didn’t seem to care that she was ogling, a look of wonderment on her face.

“I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it. I just… After all this time, all these months since I first saw you, I’ve been telling myself that I can’t have remembered properly; that the time we met and you flexed right out of that sports bra… I convinced myself that I remembered wrong, that there was no way you could have been that muscular… Like, sure, your body was spectacular, but that bra must have been faulty, or something, because how could you flex right out of a sports bra?” Jessica paused and took a deep, calming breath before continuing. “Except, you’re actually even bigger than I remembered. Your legs are huge. And your chest… Your chest is just so… thick. So meaty. Does that sound weird? I’m sorry. It’s… I don’t have the words to describe it. I didn’t know a woman could have a chest like that. It’s amazing.”   

Harriet fought the rising tide of self-consciousness and the urge to cover herself up. She looked at her body in the mirror and could see Jessica’s awed face staring at her too; suddenly she was inspired to see herself through Jessica’s eyes. Harriet’s daily posing practice - not to mention her compulsive need to check herself out in every reflective surface - meant that, when it came to her own body, while familiarity had not bred contempt, it had fostered a serious lack of objectivity.

But here and now Harriet had to admit: she was definitely bigger and leaner than ever before.

And Jessica did have a point: her chest was thick; it was meaty; it was amazing.

The thrustingly dramatic protrusion of Harriet’s pectorals was exaggerated by the overhead lighting, and the shadows cast down her body. And while she wasn’t delighted with the way her boobs had gradually shrunk over the months, she did love the way the outlines of her pectoral muscles flowed into those of her smaller breasts. It was a seamless transition, a serendipitous adaptation that nonetheless somehow looked entirely natural, planned from the beginning, a perfect complementary fusion of her new and old forms. Meant to be.

Something about Jessica’s excitement was catching and Harriet became swept up in the thrill of admiring her own gains. Maybe she should show off a little? Jessica would like that, she told herself; actually, they both would.

Jessica’s phone started to buzz. Without even looking at the screen, her eyes riveted on Harriet’s body, she reached out and dismissed the call.

Immediately, the buzzing started again; this time, Jessica picked it up to see who was calling.

“Oh, it’s… it’s my husband… I should answer it, or he’ll get angry; he doesn’t like it when I don’t take his calls.”

“Want to see me flex my chest?”

Harriet concentrated on showing off the control she had over her muscle and slowly flexed her right pec, making it ripple like the surface of a mill pond disturbed by a pebble thrown into the water.

The phone slipped from Jessica’s fingers and fell to the floor.

“What do you think?” Harriet asked shyly, repeating the flex with her left pec this time.

Jessica’s phone continued to buzz.

Harriet flexed both pecs simultaneously.

A strangled sound escaped Jessica’s lips, her ability to form words having momentarily escaped her. She stood up on shaking legs and stepped towards Harriet, her movements unsteady and staccato. She reached out, extending her arm, extending her fingers; her eyes wide, her mouth wider.

The buzzing stopped, and a message notification pinged. Then another. Then another, and another, and another; as insistent a refrain as an entire peloton ringing their bells at a dozy pedestrian ambling along the bike lane.

Jessica lunged for the dress, grabbing it so clumsily the hanger spun a full 360 degrees and continued to rock violently backwards and forwards after completing its loop-the-loop, scratching against the wall like nails down a blackboard.

“Let’s get this dress on you and see how it looks,” Jessica said hoarsely, thrusting it towards Harriet.

The phone fell silent.

“Okay,” said Harriet, deflated.

Jessica stepped behind her to help her into the dress. Harriet was unable to see her friend’s face, but it seemed to her that Jessica was assisting only reluctantly, her hands shaky and her movements tentative, as if she were trying desperately to avoid touching Harriet.

“What do you think?” asked Harriet, pulling the straps into place in the grooves between her traps and her delts.

“It, erm, it looks great,” replied Jessica flatly, sounding non-committal and stooping to retrieve her phone from the floor.

Harriet turned to inspect her side view and found that she had a clear line of sight to Jessica’s reflection in the mirror - unaware that she was being observed, Jessica’s head stayed bowed over her phone as if she were reading her messages, but the screen was black and her eyes were clearly glued on Harriet’s exposed back. Harriet watched as Jessica stroked her throat with her hand and bit down on her bottom lip.

Emboldened, Harriet turned around to face Jessica; she leant back slightly and exhaled, crunching down on her core muscles.

“Does the dress show off my abs like you thought it would?”

Jessica gulped. She moved towards the bench and, for just a moment, Harriet thought she had lost Jessica’s attention for good, that Jessica was going to sit down and read her messages, ignoring Harriet’s muscles. But Jessica carefully placed the phone down on the bench and stepped closer to Harriet, her hands again slowly reaching out until she glanced up, met Harriet’s stare, and froze, blinking rapidly.

“It’s okay. I don’t mind if you want to touch me.”

Jessica slipped behind Harriet, once more disappearing from view. Harriet watched in the mirror as her friend’s arms slowly appeared at the sides of her own torso, the hands moving towards each other until they met above Harriet’s navel.

Jessica’s hands slowly stroked down and up and down and up Harriet’s six-pack, then settled delicately on Harriet’s sides, exposed through the triangular cut-out panels of the dress.

“Rock solid,” Jessica murmured, her hands running across the powerful digitations of Harriet’s obliques, each of them thicker than any one of Jessica’s fingers.

Harriet giggled and squirmed slightly as Jessica’s fluttering fingers began to move faster, stroking up and down like a harpist running her hands over the strings of her instrument.

“Hey, that tickles!” Harriet squealed, reflexively adopting a defensive position, hunching her shoulders forward and bringing her elbows closer to her body with the result that Jessica’s hands became tightly clamped between the gunwales of Harriet’s lats and her arms.

Jessica cried out in surprise.

“Ha!” said Harriet. “I’d like to see you try to tickle me now!”

Laughing, Jessica tried to pull herself free, her upper body leaning backwards as she pushed her hips forwards in a desperate attempt to gain some leverage, her mons pubis thrusting against Harriet’s unyielding glutes. Try as she might, her escape attempt was clearly a futile one, and yet Jessica did not give up the struggle without a fight, even butting and burrowing her head into Harriet’s back in an attempt to tickle her with her hair rather than her fingers.

“Okay, okay. I surrender,” Jessica panted, eventually. “Please let me go - your muscles are so hard, they’re literally cutting off the blood flow to my fingers.”

“And if I let you go, do you promise to stop tickling me?” said Harriet jokingly, like she was admonishing a child.

Jessica played along, peering out from around Harriet’s arm to look at her in the mirror, strands of hair across her eyes, a sulky pout on her lips, a suitably contrite tone to her voice.

“I promise to try to be a good girl.”

Harriet relaxed and straightened up. Freed, Jessica shook her hands energetically, trying to get some feeling back in her fingers.

“I really did cut off the blood flow to your fingers! Why didn’t you say something? I’d have let you go sooner if you had.”

“It was fun. Besides, I wanted to see if I was strong enough to break free.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“I don’t mind if you want to be a bit rough with me.”

Harriet felt lost for words again, an explorer who had crossed the border into terra incognita and was staring at a map, unhelpfully blank apart from the legend ‘Here be dragons’. She stared at Jessica in silence. Jessica’s hair was tousled, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed, an irrepressible smile lighting up her face. She had never looked more beautiful.

Harriet blurted out the first anodyne thing she could think of, desperate to avoid saying something else she might regret.

“You never told me what you thought of the dress? Do you think it’s the one?”

Jessica gave a wicked smile and put a thoughtful finger to her lips in a cartoonish manner; she seemed to be enjoying herself.

“Hmm, you look great in it and it definitely shows off your abs, but, I don’t know; I’m not feeling it. I think the best thing will be if you take that one off and try on another one. How about this?”

Jessica unhooked the Hervé Léger bandage dress and dangled it from her fingers.

“It looks so tight - will it even fit?” said Harriet, doubtfully.

“I’ll help pour you into it.”

“Okay…”

In silence, Jessica helped Harriet disrobe and then took her time carefully hanging up the white dress while Harriet waited expectantly, wearing only her granny pants, once again admiring the definition in Jessica’s shoulders and arms. It dawned on Harriet that she was standing virtually naked in a room lined with mirrors and for once she had no interest in checking out her own muscles, not even out of the corner of her eye.

Jessica turned around and bent down in front of Harriet to allow her to step into the second dress. Once Harriet had done so, Jessica  - carefully, precisely, unhurriedly - eased the dress up and over Harriet’s powerful decussate frame, the skin-tight material contoured by her marmoreal muscles. There was no hint of reluctance this time; now Jessica was attentively fondling Harriet’s body as she smoothed out the wrinkles that formed over her abs and pecs and encouraged the shoulders of the dress up and over her capped delts.

Harriet was amazed at what she saw in the mirror. She knew she was wearing a dress - she could feel the dress, she could see the dress - and yet something about it made her feel more exposed, more naked than she had before she had put it on. She told herself that this feeling made no sense and reminded herself that she routinely wore only shorts and a sports bra in public, which exposed more of her skin, more of her thews and sinews, but somehow those clothes did not feel as revealing as a form-fitting midi length dress with three-quarter sleeves and a scooped neckline.

The dress hid almost everything, but it hid almost nothing. Every curve and muscle was enhanced. Something about the way it fitted her and the way it made her look was… indecent.

Something about the way it made her feel was indecent too.

Jessica suddenly crouched in front of her.

“What are you doing?” asked Harriet, alarmed.

“Sorting out your VPL. Hold still.”

“What? Wait!”

Jessica slipped her hands up Harriet’s dress, running her fingers up her thighs. Harriet gasped like she had just plunged into an ice bath.

“Don’t move!” warned Jessica. “If you bend over to pull them down yourself, you’ll rip right out of it; this dress is already working overtime just to contain your booty. I’ll just… hang on… nearly!”

Harriet felt Jessica’s fingertips reach her hips and fumble for the waistband of her knickers, but the dress was so tight that Jessica struggled to get an adequate grip. Harriet looked down at the top of Jessica’s head, her friend’s face so close to her body that she could feel the damp warmth of her breath on her crotch. With every passing second, Harriet could sense the heat building and what felt like Jessica’s breath beginning to condense on the thin material.

Finally, Jessica managed to hook a finger over the knickers’ elastic and slowly slip them down. Harriet flinched as she felt them peel away from her body; as they reached the hemline she shook her left leg until her knickers quickly dropped to the floor, and then she kicked them towards her bra and out of the way.

Jessica stood up, stepped back, and surveyed the results.

“Wow.”

“Do you think it looks good?” Harriet asked.

“I think it looks… scandalously, sinfully sexy.”

Harriet wanted to deny that she thought the same, wanted to say something self-effacing, something modest, if only for her own benefit, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. Instead she stood and stared at the vision in the mirror.

“You never told me what you wanted the dress for, but if it’s a date, you’re going to be a total knockout,” continued Jessica in a hushed voice.

“A date?” Harriet began, ready to correct Jessica, but then changing her mind. “Yes, I’m going on a date… Do you… I’ve not had much experience with dating… Do you have any advice for me?”

“What sort of advice?”

“Well, how should I behave on a date if I want to let someone know I, um, I like them? Like, really like them.”

“People like it when a strong, beautiful woman takes charge, so you should definitely use that to your advantage.”

“Me?” mumbled Harriet, “Beautiful?”

“Yes. You. Beautiful. Beautiful and powerful: there’s something about soft femininity meeting hard muscle that’s just… intoxicating.”

“So I should take charge? How should I take charge?”

Jessica took a few steps backwards until she was pressed up against the wall. She twirled a lock of her hair around a finger and looked coyly at Harriet.

Harriet watched her, her mouth dry.

“I think you should walk slowly towards them, so they can watch all your muscles moving and rippling underneath that skin tight dress. Really slowly, like you’re a lioness stalking your prey… Slowly, slowly, right up to them until they’ve got nowhere else to go and you’ve got them trapped.”

“Like this?”

Harriet edged forwards.

“Slower. With more confidence. With more… arrogance.”

Harriet suppressed the urge to rush forwards and tried to remember the way that Amy had moved in her competition videos.

“Yes! Like that, and then, when you’re close enough, reach out and lean against the wall with your arm just to the side of their head. Casual, but… deliberate.”

Harriet extended her arm until her palm pressed against the mirror. She shifted her weight and turned her hand as she leant forwards, funicular fibres in her forearm twisting and tensing; even without contracting her bicep, the convex mass of her muscle bulged out from her straightened arm. She heard Jessica shakily exhale through her nose.

“They’ll feel intimidated by your muscles, but also fascinated. They’ll want to stare at your broad shoulders, at your thick pecs, at the outline of your ripped abs through your dress. Let them. You’re in no hurry. Let them admire your body; your body deserves to be admired, after all. Flex your muscles for them. Show off your strength and let them drink you in.”

Harriet cocked her other arm and flexed her bicep in front of Jessica’s face. It was like watching orogeny in action; a mountain of muscle formed.

“They… they won’t be able to look away from your muscles. They’ll have never seen anything like it before, maybe in their dreams, but not in real life, not this close up… You’ll have to remind them you’ve got something you want to say to them. Grab their chin and tilt back their head so they have no choice but to stare deep into your eyes…”

“Like this?” Harriet whispered, raising Jessica’s face with a firm but gentle movement.

“By… by now, they’ll be at your mercy, squirming with anticipation, barely able to contain themselves. Their knees will be weak, they’ll be trembling, their breathing will quicken, their pulse will be racing, and all they’ll want is for you to take them, there and then. So do it!”

Harriet nervously flicked her tongue over her lips.

“Take… them?”

“Take them! Press your body tight against theirs, pin their arms above their head, squeeze them, grab them. Don’t be afraid to be rough with them, to show them how easily you can dominate them. And then kiss them. Kiss their shoulder, their neck, their throat, their chin, their cheek, their ear, make them wait, hold them back, make them wait, drive them crazy, and then kiss their lips… kiss them until you’re both dizzy and out of breath, and then kiss them some more.”

Harriet closed her eyes. She already felt dizzy and out of breath. But she knew now what she needed to do.

What she wanted to do.

What she had to do.

Jessica didn’t resist as she grabbed her arms - not that it would have made a difference if she had: right now Harriet felt like she could have held back a charging bull.

Harriet pinned Jessica’s wrists to the wall above her head.

“Tighter,” whispered Jessica, “harder.”

Harriet transferred both of Jessica’s wrists to just one of her hands and pushed them back more firmly; she used her other hand to caress Jessica’s breasts, Jessica’s waist, then to pull Jessica’s hips towards her, to squeeze a handful of Jessica’s firm arse.

Jessica moaned.

And then Harriet pressed her heavy body forwards, pushing her abs into Jessica, pinning her whole body against the wall, grinding her crotch against her, trembling, panting, her very breath quavering with desire. She could feel her pecs squash Jessica’s breasts, Jessica’s nipples hard and sharp through her blouse, Jessica grinding in rhythm against her.

They kissed.

The world stopped spinning. Everything stopped. There was only Harriet and Jessica.

A lifetime passed. Several lifetimes. Aeons.

Eventually they both came up for air.

Gasping, panting, laughing, nose to nose, they stared into each other’s eyes.

“Have I mentioned that you’re scandalously, sinfully sexy?” asked Jessica.

“Have I mentioned that I like you? Like, really like you?”

“No, I had no clue! None!”

They dissolved into giggles and then shares another passionate kiss.

Jessica’s phone began to ring. Jessica pulled back, her expression changing immediately.

“That’s Katy’s ringtone. The film must be finished. I have to go.”

Harriet’s face fell as Jessica grabbed her blazer.

“Do you have to go now?”

“I’ll give you my number. When are you free? You’ll have to come round,” said Jessica hurriedly.

She spotted the distraught expression on Harriet’s face and stepped back to give her a last, lingering kiss.

“Promise me you’ll come round?” Jessica whispered. “We have… unfinished business.”

“I promise.”

“Good. I’ve got to go, but I can’t wait to see you again.”

Jessica paused by the door and had one last admiring look at Harriet in the dress.

“Did you mean it? Does this dress really make me look that sexy?” asked Harriet.

Jessica laughed.

“It’s not the dress,” she replied, and then she was gone.

[Mesut88]

Amazing! Hopefully the next part is even more action filled than this one!

[phil123]

Great start and I hope for more

[brave_archer]

So happy to see another chapter of this epic story 

[jeffbeans]

Oh wow, that last chapter was incredible!! This is 'published author' quality writing - great characters, fantastic descriptions and oh so sexy. Please continue! 

[JohnAubrey]

As ever, thanks for the kind words - and for your patience!

Here's the next chapter, different in tone, but once again featuring a toilet. Please read it at your convenience. And also at a time that suits you...




Anyone who happened to be watching as the driver parked his Range Rover would have found it difficult to avoid coming to the conclusion that he was a dickhead.

He stopped diagonally across two disabled parking spaces with such precision that it was hard to believe he could have done it accidentally; any observer charitable enough to give him the benefit of the doubt would have probably changed their mind as soon as they took into account the car’s chrome paintwork, the windscreen’s inappropriately dark tint and the fact that the distinctive personalised number plate was not printed in a legal font.

In fact, someone was watching him; and she already knew he was a dickhead.

She watched him as he disembarked, spat his gum onto the pavement, sauntered across the road without first checking for traffic, and entered a bar.

Her fingers drummed the steering wheel, the tapping muted by the leather of her gloves, her eyes darting from the bar door to her wing mirror and back. She shifted her legs uncomfortably, feeling constrained, lacking space rather than patience.

She waited.

When she felt sufficient time had elapsed, she slowly eased herself out of her own car, parked a discreet distance further up the road from the Range Rover.

The dark clouds had threatened rain all day; now, like a Hermes courier, they finally delivered, much later than promised, and when she was out.

She closed the car door, turned up the collar of her trench coat and ducked her head down into the shelter it provided like a turtle retracting into its shell. If anyone had been watching her, they might have idly wondered why she chose to walk the long way around her car and if it had anything to do with avoiding the nearby street light, or noticed the furtive way she glanced cautiously up and down the road before stepping out from the shadows, and perhaps they might have speculated if, rather than merely sheltering from the rain, she was obscuring her face because she had something to hide.

But no one was watching her. She had been careful. She had been careful precisely because she did have something to hide.

She walked across the road and into the bar.

As the door swung shut behind her, she paused behind the line of large kentia palms that flanked the entranceway, let her eyes adjust to the lighting, and then surveyed the room.

She wanted to remain inconspicuous for as long as possible - she knew she couldn’t rely on remaining entirely unnoticed: she was too noticeable for that - and so she tried to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to herself, forcing herself to move slowly, casually, like she was waiting for a wave from a friend cloistered in one of the booths lining the walls, like she was anticipating a convivial evening, like she was ready to break bread, not bones; to spill the tea, not blood.

It was difficult to spot her target. This was not the sort of dark and dingy bar where the world-weary went to be alone, to hide away from the world. No solitary, taciturn barman poured glasses of cheap scotch. No brooding barflies nursed their drinks and rued their troubles. No plangent saxophone solo could be heard, diegetic or otherwise.

Instead, neon wall signs spelled out vacuous slogans like ‘Good Vibes’ and ‘Great Times’. Faux-vintage pendant lighting coiled around pillars, oversized filament bulbs dangling from the ceiling like incandescent-tipped lianas in a rainforest. The drinks menu placed on each table was a QR code printed on a card with a subtle, off-white colouring, tasteful thickness and a watermark that would have made Patrick Bateman break out in a sweat. The drinks themselves were garish, attention-grabbing concoctions prepared by smiling young mixologists for whom making each cocktail was a piece of exuberant performance art. Upbeat pop music played at a volume perfectly calibrated to preclude casual conversation.

You didn’t come to this bar to indulge in some silent misanthropy: you came to this bar to have fun with your friends and to take photos of yourself enjoying novelty drinks in a fashionable, obviously expensive setting; you came to this bar to be seen, either in-person or when you posted your selfies online.

And so the bar was busy, and the clientele mainly comprised young, attractive women.

And, somewhere, him.

The former doubtless explained the presence of the latter.

She finally spotted him eyeing up two twentysomething blonde women at the end of the bar, undressing them with his eyes so thoroughly and at such length that he had probably already pictured them naked, enjoyed an imaginary threesome and was now dreaming of lighting a cigarette.

She watched him approach them with a cocksure swagger, leering and entitled. The way he had looked at them, like they were pieces of meat, even the predatory way he moved towards them, made clear both what he thought of women in general and what his intentions were for these women specifically. He could have given Andrew Tate lessons in misogyny.

He lay an overfamiliar hand on the closest woman’s back, stroking the skin exposed by her strappy top, fingertips brushing the side of her breast; it was immediately obvious from the way she flinched and recoiled that his attention was unwelcome.

Unrepentant, he draped his arm over her shoulder and leaned in until his lips were almost touching her ear. You didn’t have to hear what he said to know that it wasn’t a winningly witty bon mot, or that whatever crude, cliched chat up line he had used had not made amends for pawing at her body uninvited. The blonde remained tense and closed off, a grimace on her face as she held up her hand, twisted her shoulder free from his grasp and then turned her back on him, making it clear she wanted the interaction to be over.

His face darkened.

She watched as his hand moved quickly in and back out of his pocket and, with a practised ease that suggested it was not the first time he had done this, he took advantage of being ignored and dropped something into the woman's drink before walking away.

She began to move swiftly and purposefully in the direction of the bar, heading towards the two women on the same path he had taken a few moments earlier but with a very different idea in mind. Without breaking her stride, once she was close enough to reach out for the spiked drink she whisked it off the bar top, shielding the glass with her body as she passed the two friends.

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed him walking through the doorway to the toilets and then turning right.

The sign on the wall pointing to the right said: Ladies.

She saw him push the door open.

The door swung shut behind him as he inspected the room and found it empty. He wandered down the line of cubicles, selected the one furthest from the entrance and hid himself inside. He hawked up some phlegm into the toilet, glanced at his watch, decided he had time - it would take a while for the pill to kick in - and thought he might as well make the most of it. He prepared a line of cocaine on the cistern lid, snorted it, then sat down on the seat to enjoy the rush.

The door to the ladies opened.

He considered whether the pill might have kicked in already, remaining as cautious as his buzzing brain would allow, aware that it might be someone else.

There was a clink of glass and then slow, deliberate footsteps, surely too heavy to have been made by the petite blonde who had rejected his advances, and definitely too steady for a girl who had been slipped some ketamine. He bent down and peered through the gap at the bottom of the door. All he could see was a pair of boots.

A pair of boots that had stopped directly outside his cubicle.

He quickly decided that it must be a bouncer, and that someone must have seen him walk into the ladies toilets and reported him. He stood back up, eyes wide, fists clenching and unclenching, bouncing on the balls of his feet, already shadow boxing; if he wasn’t going to get to fuck the blonde after she had passed out, he would at least get to fuck up a bouncer.

He reached for the lock, realising that he had forgotten to turn the bolt just as a foot pushed the door open from the outside, a leg thrusting its way into the cubicle.

Instinctively, he jumped at the door and crashed into it, pinning the leg against the frame.

He waited for whoever was on the other side of the door to scream in pain and attempt to pull back their limb in the knowledge that their ensuing loss of balance would be his opportunity to throw the door open and gain an immediate advantage.

Instead there was silence.

Confused, he looked down at the leg: the hem of the long coat which until now had hidden it from his view slipped and flapped open, revealing a monstrous thigh, twitching and contorting like an animal pinned by the jaws of a trap, still alive but in torment. 

And still there was silence.

He blinked rapidly, wondering if the drugs had affected his vision - the leg was twisting and warping like the hotel carpet in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but he had only snorted a line of coke, not taken sunshine acid. As he stared open-mouthed he gradually realised that he was not hallucinating, nor was he watching the throes of agony, but instead a display of controlled power: the leg was being extended and turned outwards and the muscles of the thigh were responding accordingly, rippling… flexing… hardening…

Growing…

He felt the door move.

The muscles had grown so much they were pushing back against him, the door creaking as it edged open. Heart thumping and aware of a growing sense of nausea, he leaned forwards and pressed both hands against the door, using his full weight to keep it closed.

From this angle, he was looking straight down at the leg as his mystery assailant forced it further still into the cubicle, pointing their toes like a brute-force ballerina going en pointe, the calf muscle bulging and stretching the skin in a way he had never seen before: it looked barely contained, like an angry dog straining at a leash.

His sweaty hands slipped down the door.

He lost his grip, then his equilibrium. He stumbled forwards and sideways, trying to catch himself, managing to push off the wall, clumsily lurching backwards, and ended up sitting down heavily on the toilet, the seat sliding sideways on impact.

The door swung open.

It wasn’t a bouncer.

It was a woman, a woman who stood in the doorway and removed her coat with the regal air of a monarch stepping out of an ermine robe, letting it slide down her arms and fall to the floor.

A woman now revealed to be wearing an overworked gym unitard stretched to its limits and clinging so tightly to her body that she looked vacuum packed. It was a shame that no peripatetic art critic should chose this moment to limbo under the wall from the adjoining cubicle, because they would have been well placed to declare the way the unitard veiled this woman in such a revealing manner to be reminiscent of the effect of translucent marble drapery on a statue created by an exceptionally skilled sculptor.

Not altogether unexpected, but a shame, nonetheless.

Sadly, he was not a cultured man and he had never even heard of Antonio Corradini. In his case, the first thing that came to mind when he saw her was a contestant in a wet T-shirt competition.

Not that the type of snake-hipped, uninhibited women who entered wet T-shirt competitions ever looked like the one standing before him. She was so bewilderingly broad and muscular that our hypothetical connoisseur of art would have surely been just as interested in her body as her clothing, doubtless concluding that she resembled a cubist painting in which all of her sides and all of her angles were depicted at once from a single viewpoint.

Unfortunately, as we have established, he was no aesthete and there was no one else present to make this observation for him, so it was another missed opportunity. Even more unfortunately for him, the single viewpoint of this woman was his own, and he didn’t like what he was seeing.

He didn’t like it one bit.

He continued to stare fixedly at her body for a long time as if he expected to find an explanation for what was happening hidden somewhere underneath the unitard - not that the agglomeration of muscles vying for attention realistically left enough room for anything else to be hidden under the straining material, not even a cigarette paper.

Eventually it occurred to him that this improbable body must also have a face, and he looked up.

Recognition slowly overcame confusion, and then realisation quickly fuelled panic.

“You? You!”

She nodded solemnly, but said nothing.

A surge of adrenaline comingled with the recently-snorted stimulants.

“Fuck you, bitch!”

He jumped up and charged at her, dropping down low to drive into her midriff.

She braced herself.

He might as well have tried to tackle a caryatid; it was like crashing into stone. The impact jarred his shoulder, and he grunted in pain and surprise as his feet scrambled for purchase on the tiled floor.

She barely moved.

He staggered back, wild-eyed, head wobbling like a broken Pez dispenser, searching for a way out, a big enough gap between woman and doorway through which he could escape.

As if reading his mind, she placed her hands on her hips and flexed her lats, growing wider before his eyes, filling the available space like a cartoon character who had been mangled and stretched in an amusing mishap with an ACME product, except she wasn’t spread thin like a pancake as she became wider; if anything, she seemed to become even more monumental, to grow thicker and heavier.

In this confined space, she loomed.

He darted forward, thought better of it, hopped back.

She extended an arm and beckoned him towards her with an upturned hand. She didn’t even need to thumb her nose to exhibit a Bruce Lee level of calm confidence in her own physical ability, not to mention disdain for his.

He hesitated, sensing a trick, wondering why she remained in such a relaxed stance, then decided that taking advantage of her being off guard was the best course of action. There was limited room for manoeuvre in the cubicle, no space to swing a hook, so he stepped forwards and allowed his momentum to add weight to the unchallenged right-left jab combination he fired into her stomach.

She grunted.

He felt a wave of relief wash over him, waited for her to buckle, poised himself to hurdle her prone form and make a hasty exit.

She inhaled and then exhaled, slowly.

She remained standing.

She took a step forward.

He lashed out again, feet immobile, technique forgotten, struck her right arm, managed to register how small his fist felt in comparison with her bicep just as he delivered another punch to her chest, heard it land with an impact like a meat mallet hitting a ribeye steak, felt his knuckles briefly slip into the grooves of her pectoral striations before they bounced off her body.

Another step.

He wanted to turn heel and run but the sensation of the toilet rim pressing into the back of his legs reminded him that he didn’t have the luxury of that option. He lunged at her again, arms windmilling this time, desperately throwing sloppy uppercuts, willing to trust in luck rather than judgement.

She shifted her weight almost imperceptibly, easily avoiding one, then two, then three, then four punches with an elegant economy of movement that would have scared him if he had had time to fully process how languid she looked - but having failed to make any contact with her and off-balance again, he stumbled forwards and fell against her, panicking and flailing his fists against her chest.

He could have been hammering on the great oaken door of a cathedral for all the impact his punches achieved.

She didn’t flinch.

Hammering on an actual cathedral door and crying out for sanctuary was an appealing alternative right now, but he was limited to pushing bodily against her, trying to regain his balance and hoping to knock her off hers.

One more slow, steady step forward.

The space in the cubicle seemed to shrink disproportionately.

Was she getting bigger?

Or was he shrinking? Her mere presence made him feel smaller, weaker, like he was being diminished.

She was still yet to raise a hand against him but his inability to overpower her had been made clear. He knew that at this close proximity he had no hope of generating a punch powerful enough to hurt her. In fact, he didn’t even care about hurting her now; all of his usual vindictiveness had vanished - he didn’t want to hurt her: he wanted to stop her.

Or, more accurately, he wanted her to stop before she hurt him.

Seeing no other alternative, he launched himself at her, seized her around the neck, grimaced with exertion as he tightened his grip, dug his thumbs in, willed himself to strangle her into submission.

Their eyes met. She smiled at him.

He had strangled other women in the past. Sometimes he had smiled at them as he had wrapped his hands around their throats; he had smiled at them and enjoyed hurting them while they had begged for mercy.

His smile had terrified them.

And now her smile was the most awful thing he had ever seen. He was the one with his hands wrapped around her throat and yet her smile made it clear that he was not the one in control.

She didn’t struggle, she didn’t try to prise herself free or pull back - instead she leaned forward so they were nose to nose and then she grunted, rounding her shoulders and flexing her traps which grew until they sat on either side of her neck like a pair of weighty bookends, too thick for his fingers to encompass, too solid to compress.

He tried to use gravity to his advantage, leaned backwards, swung from her neck, attempted to use his weight to drag her down.

She stayed standing. She continued smiling.

Sweaty and struggling to maintain a fingerhold, his hands began to slip, his own weight now a serious disadvantage; in desperation he tried one last jump and swing.

It was the wrong decision. He lost his grip and fell, landing awkwardly on the toilet, the angle and velocity of his descent jarring the already twisted seat on impact and knocking it loose. He plunged into the bowl, body folding in half as his feet were forced up into the air. Trapped in this humiliating position, he waved his legs ineffectually like an upended cockroach and squealed in pain.

She took one last step forward. She clenched and raised her fist.

“Pl-please? Please? I’m sorry. Please? I’m sorry.”

He began to sob.

She drew back her fist.

“No! No? Please? Please?”

She hesitated.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I won’t do it again!”

Her hand whistled towards his face, too fast for him to react. There was a gurgling noise.

She removed her finger from the flush button and watched with satisfaction as he tried to wriggle free, the swirling water soaking his trousers. Then, with one last look of disgust, she turned, stooped to pick up her coat, and began to walk towards the door that led back to the bar.

Spotting the glass containing the spiked drink where she had left it next to a sink, she stopped to empty it, watching the tainted liquid swirl down the plughole. She pulled her coat back on and once again adjusted the collar.

She caught a glimpse of movement in her peripheral vision and ducked, just in time to avoid being hit in the head by the toilet cistern lid as it arced through the air. She span back, bobbed, weaved, avoided two more clumsy swings of the makeshift weapon.

He roared with anger, raised the lid high above his head with both hands and charged at her.

His body juddered to a halt, his arms suspended in the air, like a man who had come to an abrupt stop at the bottom of a zip line.

She tightened her grip and he groaned. The attack might have taken her by surprise but she had still been too quick for him. She had sprung forwards, covering more ground in one nimble movement than he had thought possible for a woman of her bulk, and seized both his wrists; now she easily held his hands immobile above his head.

Still perspiring heavily and dripping with toilet water, he could feel the weighty lid begin to slide through his fingers. He tried to wriggle free, to no avail.

She smiled at him again. It was a smile that suggested she was glad he had not stayed down for the count.

Her grip tightened. He was losing sensation in his fingers, his tired arms growing numb.

Too late, he regretted climbing out of the toilet.

Arms out of action, he tried to knee her in the crotch but the combined breadth of her thighs prevented his low blow from making contact with her groin, his knee becoming wedged between her quads without her even having to move her legs to counteract his attack.

He glanced down in astonishment, trying to work out how his leg had become trapped, then the lid slipped and he made the mistake of instinctively looking up as he felt his grip fail.

The thick rim smashed into his nose. She let go of his arms as he fell backwards, his head cracking against the hard floor, the lid tumbling down and crunching into his teeth before it shattered on the tiles.

Luckily, the woman who eventually discovered his body on the toilet floor was an art history student and so, the next day, when she recounted to her classmates how she had found a man in a pool of his own blood, she was able to do full justice to the scene and describe how he had looked like a parody of a Byzantine icon painted with carmine pigment, a sanguine nimbus encircling his head.

So much for the icon, but what of the iconoclast?

Shortly before his body had been discovered, she had started her engine, indicated, slowly pulled out from her parking space and driven away down the quiet road, unremarked and unsuspected.

[jeffbeans]

Great work once again!