15 Minutes

One wore a slinky black top with a tight gold skirt, the other a gold top and a tight black skirt. Both wore heels that made them tower over everyone. And, both of them, Ms. Foster and Ms. Love, were each carrying a bottle.

"Hey baby," said Ms. Love, "I hope you don't mind, but when they heard what was going on, they insisted on comin'." Then she leaned close to Sarah and said, "I'd introduce you, but I don't remember their names."

"Wow," thought Sarah, "I could get drunk just from breathing the same air as this woman."

She then proceeded to bring Ms. Love up to speed, emphasizing that she should not sit down under any circumstances.

Amy smiled when she heard the two women relate their story waving the two shirts in the air. She wandered over to the bathroom, to fetch their wayward emcee.

When he looked up at her, she feigned surprise. "Why did you take off both shirts? Are you enjoying this? Look I've been trying to help you, but if you get off on this, I'm leaving right now!"

"No, no," Dan cried. "They tricked me. Really. Please don't go."

Amy sighed, "Well okay. "C'mon, we'd better get you over there."

Dan and Amy arrived back at the signing area just as the author and her entourage made their grand entrance.

"Well hello everybody," said Ms. Love, I'm sorry to be so late, but it looks like y'all have managed to keep yourselves entertained." With that she stopped and looked over at Dan and smiled.

"I did bring refreshments," and with that she held up her bottle, which Sarah could now see was Tequila. She turned to Amy and asked, "Do y'all have enough cups so that everybody can do shots?"

"We have Dixie cups," said Sarah.

"Perfect," Ms. Love said and then turning to the crowd said, "we're all friends here. No need to stand on ceremony."

With that she handed Sarah her bottle and Sarah ran off to get those cups. She was so excited. In about 5 minutes Dan's pants were coming off!

She grabbed the cups and started back. Then she stopped and decided to have one shot in private. "Whoa," she thought, "that burned!"

Then she figured what the heck and threw back another. She headed back, hesitated and did one more shot.

"Damn," she thought, "I am crazy horny! Imagine what this place will be like with 30 or so horny, buzzed women?"

The thought made her laugh out loud.

Dan was trying to usher Ms. Love into her seat, but she'd have none of it.

"Not until after we toast," she said. "Maybe you'd like to help me pass out the cups and pour?"

Dan frantically did just that, in the vain hope that maybe if he was fast enough, maybe if the toast was quick enough, then maybe, just maybe...

"15 minutes!" Someone yelled amid a smattering of applause and a few "yahoos"

and "take it off baby's."

"Well let him finish pouring first for heaven sakes," said Ms. Love.

Dan went from woman to woman pouring tequila into their Dixie cups.

Now he kind of hoped for a long toast, because the longer she talked, the longer he could keep his pants on.

But it was not to be.

"To Dan," Ms. Love said as she held her drink aloft, "Let's get them pants off!"

Everyone repeated the toast and they all emptied their cups.

Ms. Foster came up behind Dan and reaching around to place one hand on Dan's chest,

and called out, "let me help you out there." With that she deftly used one hand to unbutton his pants and then slowly unzipped them. She then rubbed his chest using both hands for a minute before slowly making her way back down to the pants that were splayed out a bit, grabbed each end and slowly pulled down.

Dan stood there now in his baby blue boxer briefs, very much the center of attention.

Ms. Fosters slow tease had had the desired effect on everyone, but mostly on Dan, not that there was much he could do about it.

Amy and Sarah stood back behind the rest of the ladies with the newly nicknamed glimmer twins admiring their work to this point. "He's bigger than I thought," said Amy, which made Sarah do a spit take, which made all four of them laugh.

"Is he famous or something?" the black haired twin asked. "I'd swear I've seen him before."

"Another round," someone called out and Dan was pressed back into service.

"What do we drink to?" one woman called out.

"How about to 10 more minutes," another suggested, and they all laughed and yelled out "10 more minutes," and downed another drink.

Dan couldn't get over how surreal this all felt. He was having a little trouble catching his breath. He looked around for Amy and Sarah and spotted them behind everyone else with those two new women. He tried to catch Amy's eye. Maybe she could get him out of here. She probably had a blanket in her Security Cruiser. He could wrap up in that and she could drive him home. He didn't know what to do. He tried to remember how he had gotten himself into this mess. How could this have happened?

His thoughts were interrupted by "5 minutes," as the countdown continued.

Amy did finally look his way, but she totally misunderstood his pleading look as she just smiled and raised her cup to him.

"Okay ladies," called out Ms. Love, "we really should get this thing started." And with that, she walked up behind the table that held some of her books, a vase of flowers and a portable microphone. She took in the contents of the table, looked up at all the women as they set their eyes on her, and let the two or three that were standing take their seats.

Finally, she looked over at Dan, smiled and sat down...with two minutes left on the clock.

"NO," someone shouted, but it was too late. Game Over.

Dan couldn't believe it. He almost fainted with relief.

"Now ladies," she said, "I think we've tortured this poor man enough."

With that she picked up the mic and started into her spiel.

"What the hell just happened?" asked Sarah, crushed. "Why did she do that?"

"I can answer that," said Ms. Foster, appearing with half a bottle of tequila in her hand.

She took a swig and handed it to Sarah. "She is all about being the center of attention.

When she felt like this was getting away from being all about her, she had to bring it back around to, well, her."

"Well I want it brought back around to Dan," hissed Sarah, taking a swig and handing the bottle to Amy, who passed it to the Glimmer Twins.

"Don't worry, she'll get bored soon enough and then you can continue your fun."

With that, the blonde twin finished off the bottle, smiled at Sarah and asked her if she had a pair of scissors.

Sarah frowned and said "No, but I think there is a pair in that..." then she smiled and said "Oh, I get it..."

"...and that's how my first book got published," said Ms. Love. "Thank you."

There was a smattering of applause, but nothing like what she was used to. Some of these women, heck, all of these women were still mad at her. She had to win them back.

"Okay," she said. "Let's do Q & A. Dan, would you be so kind as to take the mic and go to each woman who has a question?"

Dan, who had been trying to disappear by drifting away from everyone, was sorry to have the spotlight thrust back on him, but even this did not diminish the joy in his heart. Funny, 10 minutes ago the thought of walking among thirty or so women in his underwear horrified him, but now it seemed like a cakewalk compared to what it could have been! He grabbed the mic and strode over to the first woman who had her hand up.

Just standing there, however, with his package at eye level and his bulge not being ignored, not to mention the frequent pats on the butt started to erode at his newly found confidence.

Sarah now had the scissors in hand and was huddled with Amy, the twins and Ms. Foster.

"Let's take our show back," said Sarah.

"I'm down with that," said Ms. Foster, but I promise this will go better if Lana is involved."

"We don't need her, Sarah snarled.

Amy put a hand on Sarah's arm and said, "Listen to her. It's better to have Ms. Love think she's running things then have her actually running things."

While the next woman was about to ask her question, she had to wait while Ms. Foster came up and whispered something into Ms. Love's ear.

Ms. Love nodded and smiled.

"Darlin' I hope you don't mind holding that question for just a minute.

Dan, honey, can you come back up here to the front?

My friend Jill just reminded me that we have been remiss in not thanking you properly

for being such a gracious host and we did not want to let another minute go by with out correcting this faux pas."

As Dan stood in front of the seated group, Sarah stood behind him just a little off to the side. She held up the scissors and made a few snips in the air. Everyone laughed and applauded a bit. Dan turned to see what was going on, but Sarah quickly hid the scissors and shrugged her shoulders. This elicited even more laughter.

"Dan", continued Ms. Love, "thank you so much for 'entertaining' us this evening.

I can't remember the last time someone gave so much of himself to pull off (and she lingered on the words 'pull off') an event like this. We just wanted to give you um, (and here she grabbed an almost empty tequila bottle plucked two or three flowers from the arraignment, and stuck them in the bottle) this!"

Dan held up the bottle and acknowledged the applause, not noticing that the twins were now standing on either side of him or that Sarah had gingerly grabbed the back of his waistband and made just the slightest snip with the scissors.

"You truly have given us so much that we hate to ask you for anymore, but oh what the heck," Ms. Love said.

And with that each twin grabbed the back of Dan's waistband and pulled.

The ripping sound was incredibly loud. Before Dan even knew what was happening, his underwear was stretched out in front of him and then it fell to the floor.

He was immediately red all over and couldn't cover himself because he was holding that stupid bottle in one hand and the mic in the other! He just stood there as a wave of laughter crashed over him.

And then, unbelievably, Ms. Love, who had been his savior earlier, bent down and said into the mic, "okay, let's get back too it. Now I believe when we stopped, that woman in the back had a question."

"Okay," thought Sarah, "I'm liking this woman better."

She then watched with a satisfied smile as Dan's cute little butt made it's way through the crowd.

The woman started to ask her question, giggled, look down at Dan's penis, giggled some more, and finally, said she couldn't remember her question. Everyone laughed.

To his horror, Dan found that all this attention was making him hard.

"Well I remember mine," another woman said, curling her finger at Dan.

He awkwardly walked over to her, being groped as he went. When Dan got to her, he tried to hand her the microphone, but she ignored it. Instead, she grabbed his penis as if it were the mic and started to ask a question. Then she stopped and said, "hey, is this thing on?" and with a finger from her other hand she tapped on the top of Dan's penis.

This made Dan dance a little bit, which made everyone laugh even more.

Sarah had regrouped with Amy and the twins who were enjoying this performance immensely. As Dan hopped from foot to foot, the dark haired twin suddenly exclaimed,

"Oh my God, that's where I know him from!"

Finally, the Q & A stopped and Ms. Love asked everyone to line up and she would begin signing. They would hand their book to Dan, and he in turn would hand them to her.

While Ms. Love was giving out these instructions, the black haired twin was relaying a story to Amy, Sarah, Ms. Foster and the other twin.

As the woman came through the line getting there books signed, Dan couldn't help but notice that the woman weren't leaving! And how could they, the front door was locked.

He looked around for Sarah, hoping to get her to go open the door and get people out of here. He finally spotted her, but she was engrossed in a conversation and he had no hope of catching her eye.

As Ms. Love signed the last book, she said, "Well that's that. Okay Danny boy, why don't you get dressed and let these ladies out of here. I need a drink."

"Good luck," one of the ladies said, I think his clothes were all snatched up as souvenirs!"

Dan looked around, and sure enough, there were no clothes to be seen. He saw his wallet and his keys, but nothing else.

He strode over to where Sarah was and demanded that she get his clothes back from whoever took them.

Sarah just laughed. "I don't work here anymore sweet cheeks and even if I did I don't think you're in any position to boss me around. As a matter of fact, if I come back here next summer or at Christmas break, you'll be bringing me cokes and rubbing my back!"

"And one more thing," she turned and drew Dan's attention to the black haired twin,

"Go Cougars!"

With that, Amy and the twins leapt up and grabbed Dan and using zip ties that Amy had pulled from her trunk, pulled his arms behind him and tied him to a pillar.

"Ladies," Sarah announced holding up a sharpie, "it looks like we have one more signing tonight!"

Epilogue—

Mr. Johnson, the bookstore's owner came into work the next morning and was pleased to see that the store was in pristine shape. Often, Dan was in the habit of letting the morning crew clean up after a signing. But this morning the chairs were put away, a clear trash bag full of Dixie cups, three or four sharpies and pieces of a baby blue dust rag was neatly placed at the back door ready to be thrown out. "Dan must have really cracked the whip last night," he thought.

He went in to his office and saw a note from Sarah. "It's a shame that she is leaving," he thought. So he was pleased to see that Sarah was volunteering to stay on and help with any future events. Also, she suggested that he should consider hiring Amy, that nice woman who had had been the security guard to help at events as well.

"Well why not," he thought, "we don't have that many events, but if these women want to help Dan, so be it."

He'd call Sarah later and tell her how pleased he was that she was staying on.

He was about to put the note down when he saw the post-script. Dan would not be in today, it seems that he developed some kind of skin rash last night.

It wasn't until after lunch that Mr. Johnson checked his email. Since he rarely sent emails, he rarely received them, which is why he was surprised to see so many waiting for him.

The first one was from last night's author, thanking him for having her. She said it had been a wonderful event and she had posted lots of pictures on her website. "I'll have to check that out," he thought, but even as he said it, he knew he never would.

Amazingly, the next ten or eleven e-mails were from romance authors who were eager to do signings in his store.

"How wonderful," he thought. "And since Dan is out today I'll go ahead and get them all on the books. Then I'll call Sarah and let her know that she and her friend Amy are going to be very busy helping Dan. Very busy indeed!"