Undercover

[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.

[JohnAubrey]

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[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!

[JohnAubrey]

Harriet's bare feet squirmed on the pedals.

She couldn't bear it. She was late. She was never late.

She glared at the traffic light, willing it to turn green, and had time to reconsider how her life had changed. Eventually, honest to a fault even in the privacy of her own car, she conceded that, at most, she could lay claim to never being late to the gym.

The reality was that she rarely went anywhere else these days.

Not only that, she also had to admit that it was more or less impossible for her to arrive late at the gym. The nature of her unusual employment meant that she could pick and chose when she turned up at Wimbourne Hall. Her time was her own now and she had plenty of it to fill as she saw fit; as a consequence, she could always make time available for herself to fit in some yoga or calisthenics at home, or wash her workout gear and hang it all up to dry, or prep some high-protein meals before leaving the house.

For the first time in Harriet's life, she had gradually become accustomed to marching to the beat of her own drum. Liberated from outside interference and unencumbered by other people's expectations, she had grown as a woman - and not just figuratively.

Even when Harriet was lifting with Kane, they had never agreed to any kind of formal appointment beyond the routine established on the day of their first workout together, after which an unspoken understanding had formed that they would rendezvous at an early but otherwise undefined time each morning.

It didn't seem to matter when Harriet turned up anyway because Kane was both indifferent to when she arrived and, apparently, omnipresent among the weights.

Now that Harriet thought about it, did she ever truly leave the gym herself?

More or less everything she did when she wasn't physically present there continued to revolve around the time she spent in reverential communion with its barbells, its benches, its racks and its machines; even when she was at home she was preparing for her next visit, her mind dwelling on the following day's workout. What equipment would she need? How heavy would she go on bench tomorrow? In what order would she approach her exercises? As she ate a second dinner in her kitchen or sat on her sofa browsing Insta****, she would be forming a mental map of her route across the gym floor and planning contingencies in case the leg press was occupied or the dumbbells she needed were unavailable.

She could be an anchoress, the gym her cell, working out her Eucharist.

She could no longer imagine life without it.

Her mind continued to wander: before today, when had she last been extended a formal invitation to go anywhere other than the gym?

And when had there last been anyone waiting expectantly for her, looking forward to seeing her?

Kane didn't count. Harriet considered that if Kane did enjoy the sight of her walking through the gym doors each morning it was only in the same way Torquemada would have relished finding a fresh heretic strapped to the rack; and in each scenario, there was never any time for small talk, only screaming. Regardless, even if Kane had been uncharacteristically delighted to see her arrive one day, working out with the giant Glaswegian was a professional obligation rather than a social occasion.

When had there last been someone excited to see her arrive?

Harriet's mind drifted to thoughts of Jessica. Jessica. Jessica had been genuinely, spontaneously excited to see her when they had crossed paths in the shopping centre - and if they were to meet again, Harriet couldn't deny that the feeling would be entirely mutual.

Harriet had spent a lot of time thinking about Jessica over the last few days. But despite staring at her acquaintance's recently acquired phone number for so long that its digits were now fully committed to her memory, she had still yet to find the necessary courage to call her, despite coming very close.

Not long after she had been given the number, some nagging fear about its authenticity - a vague notion that made her worry she was in possession of a Jackpot-winning lottery ticket that could yet prove to be a forgery - had stayed her hand even as she told herself it was entirely unfounded. And then she had been consumed by the fear that, even if it was genuine, maybe Jessica would have changed her mind about wanting to see her again; if Harriet never picked up the phone and dialled the number, she would never have to face the prospect of her happy fantasy being shattered. It was no longer Jessica's phone number: it was Schrodinger's phone number.

If Jessica had been there with her in the bedroom this morning, Harriet thought, everything would have been much better.

She mentally corrected herself again: everything would have been much quicker.

But also better. Much, much better...

Harriet tried to focus and glanced at the dashboard clock, checking the time before running over the events of the morning as she attempted to calculate exactly how she had fallen so far behind schedule.

Why was she so late, she wondered; surely she had allowed herself enough time? She had known that squeezing into the dress on her own would be difficult and she had been punctilious about starting to get ready well in advance of when she needed to leave.

It was an old habit of Harriet's when she was deep in thought to move her feet idly up and down, as if working the treadle of a sewing machine, and as her feet began to fidget thus, the repetitive motion gradually made her trench coat slip open, exposing her left thigh and revealing the way it spread across the seat like a river that had burst its banks; it formed a delta of muscle, the veins spreading across her quad like distributary channels.

Harriet looked down, her eyes lingering on the small triangle of gauzy material that was now just visible between the top of her legs.

Perhaps she had been a little too distracted by her new underwear?

— — — — —

10am

The thought of wearing one of her usual sports thongs underneath the dress had felt entirely wrong to Harriet, a combination of the utilitarian and the elegant as discordant as if she'd decided to accessorise with a sweatband. And besides, her sports thongs had all had a hard life - as resilient and hard-wearing as they were designed to be, once they had been subjected to a few leg days they quickly became coiled and deformed, stretched and twisted as surely as if they'd been stuck in a mangle, distorted by fighting the weight of Harriet's body and struggling to contain the movement of her muscles as she lowered herself into deep squats, deadlifts and thrusts.

And so, in anticipation of wearing the dress in public for the first time, Harriet had bought something black and lacy and risqué.

She was still proud of herself for purchasing this in an actual brick-and-mortar shop, rather than online, because the thought of publicly browsing for lingerie was not something she would have previously countenanced. Admittedly, she had also been hugely relieved not to have been approached by an assistant and asked if she needed any help picking something out - that was a prospect that she could only have found more mortifying if she had been a priest caught wandering through Ireland's biggest lingerie section - and as she had walked back out onto the high street after making her purchase she had been careful to tuck the branded gift bag under her arm to hide the name of the shop from passersby.

Nonetheless, it remained a first for her. 

And what she had purchased was smaller and racier than any underwear she had ever worn before - or ever considered wearing before.

As she got ready to put the new lingerie on, it somehow contrived to appear even smaller than it had in the shop, not to mention far more delicate than she had remembered. It felt worryingly flimsy and insubstantial as she pulled it up her legs and around the overhang of her quads but, what it lacked in coverage, she was surprised to find it made up for in comfort.

She pulled her new purchase up and into place until the waistband settled felicitously above her hips and below the lowest ridges of her obliques.

As Harriet half-turned and looked back over her shoulder at her reflection in the mirror, the pronounced curvature of her tightened glute entirely eclipsed the gossamer G-string from her view. Satisfied that it should remain invisible under her dress but curious to see what effect movement would have on how it felt, she began to wiggle her hips back and forth only to stop quickly, disheartened by how stiff and awkward she looked.

She closed her eyes and tried to recall all those videos she had recently rewatched of Amy, the slinky way the bikini competitor walked across the stage, so unhurried and self-assured, and she made an attempt at a slow shimmy in approximation of Amy's movements.

If Harriet had not been concentrating so hard on the motion of her body, it might have occurred to her that this was not the first time she had envisaged Amy when she wanted to conjure up the image of a sexy woman, but no such realisation dawned before she opened her eyes and saw her reflection: she had not been successful in mimicking Amy's feline sway.

In Harriet's mind, her little dance had looked like Salome with her seven veils and a six-pack thrown in for good measure; in practice, she looked like a dyspraxic robot tasked with performing a cha-cha-cha. In dismay, and with a hint of petulance, Harriet abandoned the sinuous for the staccato and resorted to an abrupt and alternate flexing of her buttocks instead. Her muscles jumped dramatically, grinding together in a feat of gluteal bruxism, and Harriet took some solace in the way she did at least have complete control over each and every one of these explosively surging movements. 

Even now the G-string remained so comfortable that Harriet ran her hands over the material to reassure herself it hadn't somehow dematerialised. She closed her eyes again as her fingertips brushed across the delicate underwear and came to rest against the solid expanse of her thighs.

The contrasting sensations of the lightweight material, exquisitely embroidered but fragile, and of her muscles, finely detailed in their own way with a filigree of vascularity but also so large and so powerful that they were positively clamorous in their insistence that they not be ignored, were so unfamiliar to her that she tingled with excitement. Something about the combination was counterintuitive, almost to the point of feeling foolhardy, like she had decided to camouflage a couple of howitzers with a doily. 

Harriet had never previously understood why women would make the effort to wear lingerie, impractical and expensive as it was, but now its appeal began to make sense to her; she could recognise the pulse-quickening allure of hiding such an intimate secret from the world.

She also started to wonder if concealing the secret was only part of the enjoyment, and if the ultimate anticipation was perhaps waiting to divulge it to a special someone.

— — — — —

Harriet became aware of movement and looked up to see that a cyclist had filtered through the traffic waiting at the lights and stopped right next to her door, his left foot planted on the floor for balance; his body was inclined towards her car and he glanced down in her direction when he sensed that she had raised her head to stare at him.

His eyes widened.

Harriet suddenly remembered that, if her coat had fallen open and she could see her thigh and her underwear, then that meant the cyclist could see them too.

Flustered, Harriet primly drew her coat back across her leg, fighting the urge to pull it back too hastily and by doing so draw even more attention to herself. She sat and stared straight ahead, blinking rapidly and unwilling to make eye contact with the cyclist or to acknowledge the fact that her cheeks were burning.

She thought back to when she had left that morning and how she had become worried that the bending and twisting movements required to ease herself into the driver's seat would tear apart the seams of her dress as easily as perforated toilet paper. Her solution had been to carefully pull the skintight material up her thighs and glutes until it had only to contend with the far narrower circumference of her waist, where it sat safely bunched above her iliac furrows; only then had she climbed into her car.

With her long coat still covering her legs down past her knees, she had not felt at all exposed - or been worried about flashing.

Until now.

Harriet resisted the urge to squirm in her seat. She had known the dress would cause her problems. Just not this many.

— — — — —

10:25am

The dress had been laid out neatly on the bed for the past ten minutes, Harriet staring nervously at it all the while as she paced back and forth, analysing it like it was a puzzle she needed to solve. Just as had been the case with her new underwear, the dress appeared much smaller than Harriet remembered it looking in the shop and she had already checked the label twice to make sure that she hadn't somehow bought the wrong size.

She reached out to touch it, reassuring herself that it was definitely that small and not just far away.

And then she checked the label again, just to be on the safe side.

Trying to find something to distract herself from the growing nervousness that was making her feel slightly sick, she read aloud the message Handwash only, and then repeated the phrase as if commencing an incantation that could help assuage her nausea. 

Handwash only. Handwash only... Handwash only, handwash only, handwash only...

Contrary to the impression given by her nervous inaction, Harriet had already given a lot of thought to the problem of squeezing into the dress by herself, aware that, without Jessica's willing assistance, this would be a much more difficult proposition than when she had first tried it on.

Over the last few days she had watched several Youtube videos in which various stylish, resourceful women jury-rigged homemade contraptions to help them solve this very problem; and she had eventually settled on copying a technique that made use of some items she had readily available in her flat - a shoe lace and a paperclip, the former looped though one end of the latter which, in turn, had been bent to form a rudimentary hook.

She scanned the room for her makeshift fishing line and realised it had fallen off the side of the bed. She squatted down to pick it up, wanting to ensure it was within easy reach; once her new outfit was on, she knew that any further exaggerated movements like this one might lead to inopportune eruptions of muscle that could damage the garment beyond repair.

With the end of the lace now nestled in her palm, she stepped tentatively into the dress and began to slide herself into the material as gingerly as an inexpert swordsman slipping a freshly-sharpened blade into its scabbard.

And then, slowly, gently, holding her breath all the while, she eased the dress up her body, first a little on the right, then a little on the left... the right, then the left... the right, then the left... until, finally, she was fully enrobed.

Harriet stared at the catoptric version of herself and tried to ignore the little voice in her head - the one that sounded like her mother - that said the dress wasn't supposed to look like this, or to be worn by a woman who looked like her; the dress was supposed to look tight and fitted but remain relatively modest on a waif-like woman - someone like Audrey Hepburn, fragile and delicate, the sort of woman who was herself an adornment to be found clinging tightly to a man's arm.

She looked ridiculous, the voice continued, and the dress was so tight people would think it had shrunk in the wash.

Harriet began to take a deep, calming breath, only to quickly exhale as she felt the material tighten across her swelling chest. She made an attempt to ignore the poisonous whispering and concentrated instead on recalling the effect the dress had had on Jessica.

She pretended that Jessica was in the room with her now, imagining the stupefied look on Jessica's beautiful face, Jessica's eyes sparkling, Jessica's cheeks flushed, Jessica's lips parted, Jessica's breathing ragged... Jessica's fingers reaching out to trace the sweeping contours of the material moulded to her powerful form... Jessica telling her she looked beautiful... 

Jessica's voice echoed in her head: "It's not the dress."

And then Harriet imagined she could hear a new voice speaking up, her inner monologue threatening to become a Greek chorus working from different scripts. This voice sounded more like her own but it spoke firmly, persuasively, loudly, drowning out its predecessor: the dress was supposed to look like this and she was supposed to look like this; there was to be no more stooping, no more hunching, no more trying to shrink.

Harriet obediently drew herself up to her full height, squared her shoulders, and studied her reflection once again. This time she had to admire the woman who stared back at her. This woman was no adornment. This was a woman who, if she were to stand next to a man, would make him look fragile and delicate; he would cling to her arm and be forced to admire her biceps in all their emasculatory glory. 

Yes, Harriet admitted, her mother would not have approved; and yes, nothing about her outfit was subtle. She could only have been wrapped up more tightly if an especially gastronomic cannibal had prepared her to be cooked sous vide. But her body didn't lend itself to subtleties any more and, after all that time and effort in the gym, the idea that her muscles deserved to be showcased was a persuasive one.

After all, she admitted to herself, the effect of the dress was spectacular.

Her eyes wandered down her torso, taking in the way the scooped neckline displayed the clearly-defined tripartite delineation formed by her clavicles and pectoral cleavage; as she tilted her head thoughtfully to the side she could see a resemblance to the three-pointed Mercedes star.

A typical woman getting dressed up to go out and inspecting her decolletage might, at this point, have slipped her hands into her dress to arrange her breasts to their best advantage - and perhaps even squeeze them together to achieve optimum results.

Harriet had no need of her hands, instead opting for a swift, tactical flex of her right pec to pull the material on that side of her body a little tighter and the dress into better alignment. Then, unable to help herself, she excitedly bounced both pecs a few times, gave them a final squeeze, and admired the results.

Between each flex a brief tinkling sound was audible as the lariat necklace she had picked out to wear danced in her animated cleavage like a wind chime in a hurricane, the sound becoming muffled with each contraction as her muscles bumped together and the necklace totally disappeared between them. 

As she finally unclenched her pectorals, Harriet's eye was drawn first to this piece of jewellery and then lower, to the abdominal testudo formation which was surmounted by her powerful chest.

Her core had been fortified over the months by Kane's brutal boxing training. The progressively heavier medicine balls the sergeant had hurled down with sadistic relish at Harriet's supine form on the gym floor had helped to form them, as had the brutal punches, each as heavy as a blacksmith's hammer blow, that Kane had pounded into Harriet's trunk while she had braced herself to withstand the impact.

In the hours after these conditioning sessions Harriet's skin was left looking red and raw, like Kane was a boatswain's mate who had been ordered to give Harriet a dozen lashes with a cat o' nine tails; but Harriet's abs had absorbed all the punishment and had grown ever more resilient until they had become as impenetrable as a shield wall. 

Harriet's hand moved across her abdominals, fingers following the contours of their intersections, when a tickling sensation made her realise that she was still clasping the end of the shoelace. She reached up to the nape of her neck, ready to draw up the zip, only to pause as she noticed her contracting bicep balloon.

As she had grown leaner, the muscles in her arm had become visibly bicephalous, the split unmistakable, as two-headed as Zaphod Beeblebrox.

And Jessica had been right: watching the way her bicep filled out the short sleeve and fought against being contained by it - the vascularity and the definition obvious even through the material - somehow made her muscles look even bigger than they already were. The sleeve was at its tensile limit and her bicep looked ready to perform an escapology act that would have impressed Houdini.

The zip forgotten, Harriet stood and stared. She had already had cause to wonder more than once over the last few months about the way her muscles, which she examined obsessively every time she got a pump in the gym, and which in many respects she knew better than the back of her hand, somehow managed to look even more impressive when seen in different contexts, especially in more domestic settings.

She didn't know why she found her bicep to be more attention-grabbing when she was doing something as mundane as the washing up than when she was completing a set of preacher curls, but she knew it was often the case. And for Harriet this phenomenon had never been quite so pronounced as it was at this very moment: the way her bicep peak contorted the sleeve of this fashionable dress made the scale of her accomplishment resonate like never before.

She carried on staring.

– – – – –

The angry honking of a car horn snapped Harriet back to reality.

The traffic lights had changed while she had been lost in her reminiscence. Flustered, she tried to pull away too hastily and her bare foot slipped off the pedal.

The car stalled.

Cursing her clumsiness, she fiddled with the ignition, restarted the engine and began moving forwards just in time to have to slam on the brakes as the impatient driver of the car which had been stuck behind her swerved around and stopped, deliberately blocking her way. The driver gave her the finger and mouthed something obscene before speeding off.

The traffic lights turned red once more, and the cyclist - who had observed the road rage incident with a disapproving look on his face that said 'Typical driver' -  took this as his cue to start pedalling and whizz over the crossing, weaving past a couple of pedestrians who had made the mistake of thinking the green man meant it was safe for them to cross.

Harriet stared blankly through her windscreen as the cyclist disappeared into the distance, her fingers wrapped tight around the steering wheel, her initial frustration crystallising into a righteous indignation.

The pair of shoes which she had placed neatly on the front passenger seat had toppled over and fallen into the footwell after her abrupt stop. Cursing her luck, she leaned across to pick them back up and dust them down.

— — — — —

10:55 am

Harriet had never had many opportunities to wear high heels over the years, and certainly not recently; the pair she retained at the bottom of her wardrobe in case of a special occasion were largely ceremonial and might as well have been kept in a case marked In case of emergency break glass.

The first thing she noticed as she slipped on the heels was how cold and hard they felt. Her feet had grown comfortably accustomed to the softness and warmth offered by sports socks and to the generous padding of trainers, and she winced like she had dipped her toe into an ice bath to check the temperature, only to discover the water was even colder than expected.

The unpleasant sensation only became worse as she reluctantly settled the balls of her feet into the shoes, her body's full weight forcing her toes to slide in deeper and to become tightly pinched together. In an attempt to alleviate the sudden agony, she tried to disassociate and think of something else, letting her mind wander - except suddenly she wasn't in her bedroom any more and her imagination had transported her to Song dynasty China, where someone was binding her feet with a particularly sadistic relish.

Wincing, she abandoned the fantasy and focussed on finding a more practical solution, shifting her weight in the search for a more tolerable position.

She knew her shoe size had remained unchanged when buying trainers, and so her feet couldn't have grown, but she wondered if they had somehow changed shape after all the months of heavy exercise. Whether or not this was the case, she couldn't ignore her present discomfort much longer and she was already beginning to consider alternative choices of footwear as she took a couple of hesitant steps back towards the wardrobe.

Enduring pain to pursue gains in the gym was second nature to Harriet these days. She actively enjoyed establishing the precise boundaries of her physical limits, then ignoring them, gritting her teeth and grinding on regardless - but she saw little benefit to pain without gain and she wasn't prepared to risk becoming spavined for a pair of shoes she didn't even like very much.

And then she noticed her calves.

It had been so long since Harriet had worn heels she had forgotten what would happen when she was pushed up onto her toes for a prolonged period; or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that she had just not given the outcome any consideration. On those rare occasions when she had braved heels in the past, even though she had been a relatively fit, active woman, 'leg day' was not a phrase in her vocabulary; and while her calves had been firm and pleasantly shaped back then, even in heels they had ultimately remained as slender and unremarkable as the rest of her body.

In retrospect, it should have been obvious that these shoes would force her calves into an extended flex, but Harriet wasn't prepared for the results. The thought occurred to her that high heels were essentially a Wonderbra for calves - except, she was tickled to consider, even without their assistance, she had already developed the equivalent of a pair of gravity-defying DDs thanks to all those hours in the gym.

The effect of the heels on Harriet's legs was akin to the final flourish on a masterpiece, da Vinci adding the enigmatic smile to the Mona Lisa.

A whisper escaped Harriet's lips as she recalled the slogan of the infamous ad campaign that had featured Eva Herzigova demonstrating the benefits of the Wonderbra.

"Hello Boys..."

Harriet wrinkled her nose and decided she didn't like the sound of that.

"No... Hello Girls."

From the front her calves looked deadly, the lateral heads of her gastrocnemius muscles each forming a flinty, razor-edged rhombus, jagged and sharp as a neolithic arrowhead, their edges so keen they threatened to cause sparks if a misjudged stride ever resulted in them striking together.

But from behind, when Harriet edged around to investigate her rear view, it was a different story: from this angle the structure of her muscles was recognisably heart-shaped - and these cordate bulges were big enough to put all but the largest novelty Valentine's Day gifts to shame.

Without stopping to think about what she was doing, Harriet began to walk to and fro across her bedroom carpet, the pain forgotten, craning her neck this way and that to inspect her calves from a variety of angles.

Her gait adapted without any conscious effort on her part and she settled into a new rhythm as naturally as if she had just unlocked an innate ability.

Heel toe, heel toe, heel toe.

Her steps were shorter than usual, more deliberate; slower and more measured, too - but there was nothing robotic or rigid about the way she moved now, the girth of her thighs encouraging a hemispheric swing forward for every stride, which in turn caused her hips to swing back and forth smoothly, each motion exaggerated by the posture encouraged by the high heels, all the resulting torque putting the sin in sinuous.     

Harriet knew that she had finally found the missing ingredient. She could sashay as well as Amy; or at least soon would, with the chance for a little more practice.

Serene and well-balanced, and with no need to concentrate on staying upright any more, Harriet slipped into an enjoyable reverie which advanced with a certain logical progression from her shoes to her legs to arrows to hearts to Cupid to... Jessica.

And as she thought about her friend, Harriet realised that Jessica had been right not just about the sleeves, but about something else, as well: it wasn't the dress.

Harriet truly believed what Jessica had said now: it wasn't the dress; it was her.

Harriet was aware that she was bigger, heavier, and more muscular than she had ever thought possible; and yet contrary to everything she had expected - and everything she had ever learned about how women should want to look - for the first time in her life she was totally convinced of her own femininity and her own sex appeal.

She was wearing the most revealing outfit she had ever dared to put on, a dress so tight that wearing it in public was only marginally less scandalous than being entirely nude; and she was on her way to an event where she would be doing that most un-Harriet of things: showing off in front of an audience.

But not only that, she was actually looking forward to being the centre of attention for once.

Harriet's eyes gleamed with excitement as the wave of confidence crested and she told herself the time was right.

She looked around for her phone and spotted it on the desk on the other side of the room. She walked towards it and scooped it up, her hand shaking with excitement.

She rehearsed what she would say: "Hi Jessica, it's Harriet... Sorry for not phoning sooner but things have been crazy and I've been so busy recently... No... I'm really sorry it's taken me so long to call, but between work and the gym I've just had no free time... No... Hi Jessica, it's Harriet... I'd have phoned sooner but I've been working hard to make some extra gains to show off to you when we meet up... Yes..."

Harriet couldn't help but laugh giddily at the audacity of the final option. Even she was surprised by the boldness of her own phrasing, but something told her Jessica would enjoy the cocksure tone, not to mention the suggestion that her muscles had grown.

The phone began to ring.

Without pausing to look at the display, she answered the call, still smiling and suddenly so carefree she thought herself ridiculous for having put this off for so long.

"Hello?"

— — — — —

Harriet sat in her car, staring bleakly across the car park towards the stage door, aware she was late but unwilling to move.

She had successfully kept herself distracted during the drive here by focussing her irritation on the journey itself, and by thinking about everything else that had happened that morning other than the phone call, but now she had arrived it was all she had left to dwell on. She caught a glimpse of herself in the rear view mirror and realised she looked as deflated as she felt.

She couldn't suppress the worry that what she had hoped to be a new chapter might actually be the end of the story.

She tried to clear her mind of the growing sense of aggravation mixed with unfairness that had been building ever since she had spoken to her sister, adjusted her coat to make sure it wouldn't flap open again, sighed deeply, and then stepped out of the car.

She took some satisfaction in angrily slamming the door shut, feeling her muscles flex and shift beneath the dress hidden under her coat.

— — — — —

11:25am

"Harry, darling! How are you?"

Harriet froze. She only knew one person who would affect such a luvvie tone.

"Hello? Harry? Are you there?"

"Uh, yes.. I'm... Hi..."

"Don't tell me you haven't read my emails? Didn't you know your sister was returning today, in a fabulous blaze of glory, I might add?"

Harriet hadn't thought to check her inbox for several days.

"Oh.. I've been having some email problems, I-"

"So you haven't seen all the reviews I sent you? All the five star reviews?"

"No, I-"

"They simply loved me, darling! Although, truth be told, I'm glad to be home - I was getting rather fed up of all the standing ovations and encores! A girl only needs so many bouquets!"

"So... you're back?"

"Yes, haven't you been listening to a word I've been saying? Oh, how I've missed you - my little sister, always with her head in the clouds. You haven't changed at all while I've been gone; it's so reassuring. You must come over straight away - I can watch you read all my press cuttings."

"Erm... I can't. Not now. I'm just heading out."

"Can't it wait? I'm sure it's not as important as seeing your sister for the first time in... how long has it been again? The months have flown by; I've totally lost track!"

"Um, I don't know... But I do have to go now - honestly. I'm... attending an event and I'm running late."

"An event? What kind of event is more important than welcoming home your own sister?"

"It's... an awards ceremony."

"Some boring work thing, I suppose! What award have you won?"

"I haven't won anything - I'm sort of giving out an award."

"Of course you didn't win anything. Boo! How tedious. Well, if you have to go, you have to go, I suppose. When I can see you, then?"

"I don't know. Soon. I'll call you, but... I don't know when. I have to go now. Bye."

Harriet hung up and walked woodenly towards the hallway, barely aware of her surroundings, like a woman who had just woken up from being under anaesthesia. She opened her front door, stepped into the hallway, hesitated, and then reached back inside for her trench coat, which she tightly wrapped around herself, as if hiding a shameful secret. Then she checked the hallway was clear, and closed the door quietly behind her.   

[brave_archer]

I wasn't expecting a continuation of this great story after so much time, but wow, you always bring it! Here's hoping the next chapter doesn't take as long and (fingers crossed) maybe you also continue your other fantastic stories too 

[jeffbeans]

So glad to see a new instalment! Harriet's sister is going to get quite a shock when she see's her....hopefully Jessica will see her soon too!