Liz Wants to Earn Her Reputation!

"You sound doubtful; you're welcome to come on up and check the view out for yourself! Apartment 742!"

"That sounds like fun," she said, "but I haven't got a thing to wear!"

"Oh, we're all pretty casual, you can come as you are!" His companions said nothing, but nodded their heads vigorously in agreement.

Liz was about to answer the balcony dudes when she heard the stair door creak open behind her, followed by the sound of Tracy apologizing for taking so long.

"Sorry, fellas, I need to get going," the naked barista said, "Nice meeting you."

"Hope I see you again sometime," the tall guy said.

"I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they do see me again," she thought, thinking the odds were pretty good that those three were at least occasional customers at her coffee shop. She wondered if they'd even recognize her when she was fully dressed! She was surprised to realize she wasn't sure whether or not she'd mind being recognized!

As she came near the stair door, Liz heard Tracy tease her, saying, "Did I come too soon? You look like you were having a good time!"

"It's true, I wasn't having a bad time," Liz admitted, "but I think I'm ready to have my clothes ba...what the fuck?" She was stunned by Tracy's latest surprise.

True to her word, Tracy had brought all of Liz's clothing, from her necktie down to her shoes. Liz just hadn't expected to see Tracy wearing her entire ensemble. Other than a baseball cap which was her own, every bit of clothing she had on was Liz's! She had apparently left her own clothing behind, which left Liz still naked.

"Sorry I borrowed your stuff without asking," Tracy apologized, "It's such a cute outfit, I just had an urge to try it all on, and I'm no good at resisting sudden urges."

"I wasn't consciously going for this when I bought it, but a couple of the guys at work call it my 'sophisticated naughty schoolgirl outfit'. So, where did you leave your clothes?"

"Back at the other stair, where you stripped. Good job with that, by the way, you really had that crowd watching you wound up! I left my clothes there because my plan was for you to stay naked until you can get back there, just like I did before," Tracy explained as she headed down the stairs, taking for granted that Liz would follow her instead of demanding her clothes right then. Liz almost insisted on getting her clothes back, but had to admit Tracy's surprises, despite being initially aggravating, and often frightening, had consistently ended up being thrilling! She followed her mentor down the stair, away from all the spectators at the roof but now enjoying a different kind of excitement, enjoying the uncertainty about where Tracy was leading her and what, or maybe who she might encounter!

Liz thought that they would simply go down the West stair to the fifth floor, walk through the corridor running the length of the building between the East and West stairs, and climb one level in the East stair to reach the roof level and Tracy's clothing. Tracy explained, "I thought I could do that, too but I'd forgotten that the entire fifth floor is occupied by a single tenant, so the stair doors at that level can't be operated from the stair side."

"Okay," Liz asked, "so we have to go down to the fourth floor? Not a big deal."

"Well, the fourth floor is just like the fifth, so we can't cross over there either," Tracy continued, "we'll need to go all the way down to the third floor. That's where I work, and also where the Janitor and I met, so I know we can get from one stair to the other at that level!"

"If that's what we need to do, then that's what we'll do. I just hope we don't run into him tonight!"

Tracy peered through the small window in the third-floor door and confirmed that the corridor was empty, telling Liz, "All clear, but remember, someone could pop out of any of these offices at any moment; we should move quickly."

Liz nodded and followed Tracy out to the corridor, thinking, "The quicker the better, I've provided enough people with entertainment for one night!" Tracy began to run down the corridor and Liz picked up her pace to stay close. The matched pair of blondes had covered more than half the distance to their destination, the East stair, when Tracy suddenly slid to a halt and frantically reversed her direction. Liz had been right on her heels and was almost knocked over by Tracy's unexpected change in direction.

"What the hell, Tracy? You just about knocked me on my ass," Liz hissed, "did you see the Janitor?"

"Worse," the visibly shaken Tracy said once they took refuge back in the stair they'd just left. "The board of the not-for-profit agency where I work is having a meeting in our conference room," she explained, "which has a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows along the corridor. They must have just started a few minutes ago because they definitely weren't there when I crossed between stairs after leaving you on the roof. If they asked, I might have been able to come up with a believable lie to explain why I'm around at this hour, but no way could I explain why I have a hot naked chick with me! Looks like we'll need to go down to the second floor." Liz nodded and followed Tracy down one more story.

A minute later and one story closer to the ground floor, Tracy turned away from the window in the door at the second-floor landing and grumbled, "Of course they are, why wouldn't they be?"

"What did you see," Liz asked, "and who are you talking about?"

"Have a look for yourself," Tracy said, "and tell me if you think we should try walking through this floor's corridor."

Liz stepped up to the door and looked through the window. "Oh, fuck no! There must be a dozen men out there!" She saw men painting the walls, men laying floor tile, men installing new light fixtures, and one or two cleaning up the space. The building's owner had apparently arranged for various updates to be done overnight. After she saw the workers in action, Tracy remembered people in her office talking about how the third-floor corridor outside their office had been transformed in a single night last week.

Liz turned away from the window a little too slowly; a couple of the painters noticed a pretty female face at the window, there one second and gone the next. The men began walking toward the door to investigate. Seeing the painters approaching, Tracy told Liz, "We've got company! Go! Now!"

"Which way, up or down," Liz asked.

"Up just gets us trapped, somewhere in the stair above us or maybe on the roof," Tracy said, "It has to be down!" They scrambled downstairs, listening for the sound of footsteps following them down. After a minute of straining to hear if anyone was pursuing them but hearing nothing, they began to calm down. They couldn't truly relax, since they hadn't really improved their situation since Liz had come in from the roof; Liz was still completely naked, they still needed to cross over to the East stair to retrieve Tracy's clothing, and apparently the only place they could leave the West stair and get to the East one was in the lobby, where anyone entering, leaving, or just passing by could see them.

"Since I'm dressed," Tracy said, "I can leave the stair to see if the coast is clear for us to make it to the East stair unseen."

"I guess that makes sense," Liz replied, overlooking the fact that other than her baseball cap, every piece of clothing Tracy had on was Liz's. She considered demanding Tracy give back her clothes, but Tracy had already left the shelter of the enclosure around the West stair on her scouting mission.

Three minutes later, Tracy returned with good news and bad. "There's nobody but us in the lobby, and I didn't see any pedestrians pass by the whole time I was out there, but there is one problem, or maybe four problems."

"What's the problem?"

"There are four people still in your coffee shop," Tracy explained, "two guys and two women. One guy is wearing an apron, but he doesn't seem to be working, just hanging out with the others." She fought off a sudden but short dizzy spell, then added, "They don't look like they're going anywhere any time soon."

"I remember now," Liz replied, "Before you came into the shop tonight, Rob told me he, his girlfriend Hannah, Hannah's friend Jennifer and her boyfriend Jack were going to a movie later, they must be killing time before their show time. Hannah was also a co-worker until a couple of months ago. From the seating area, they'd be able to see me most of the way between the two stairs, I'll have to wait here until they leave."

"I don't think that's such a good idea," Tracy said, "we have no idea how long they'll hang out in the shop, and those people in my office could decide to take the stairs down when they leave, or the workers up on the second floor might come down. Better to make a run for it at a time of your choosing instead of having no control at all of the situation."

"Make a run for it? And let two people who know me see me naked? Doesn't seem like much of a plan..." Liz replied nervously. Though she'd already been seen in the nude tonight by more people than she'd have been able to imagine a few weeks ago, none of those people knew her. The idea of having Rob and Hannah see her naked body was more frightening than anything else she'd done all night. She was also aware of another feeling creeping in to her thoughts; arousal was gaining fast on fear. While she didn't think of Rob as boyfriend material, she had to admit he wasn't hard to look at; she'd even had a short-lived crush on him when he first began working with her!

"I looked at the sightlines when I was out there," Tracy assured her, "it's true that they would have a clear view of you from where they're sitting now, but if I could distract them and get them to move to the corner up near the exterior door, the West stair enclosure would block their view!" Liz opened the stair door and hid behind it. She peeked around the door's edge and confirmed Tracy's scheme might possibly work. She felt a shiver run through her as she nodded to Tracy, who returned the nod and headed to a spot no more than three or four feet from the glass wall between the lobby and the corner of the coffee shop.

Tracy moved quickly at first, hoping to create a commotion inside the coffee shop and draw the two couples inside as near to her location as possible. She hadn't taken the time to tie the necktie and just hadn't bothered to button the vest, so she was able to remove those two items in a few seconds. Getting the shoes off only took a few seconds more. She slowed down a bit, unbuttoning the seven buttons on the front of the blouse at a leisurely pace. "It's working," she thought as Rob and Hannah moved to a table right in front of her. She greeted them with a broad smile, but made sure to keep her cap tipped down enough to hide the rest of her face. She slowly pulled her arms out of the blouse's sleeves and held the loose piece of maroon silk over her chest for a while, teasing her small audience before eventually letting it drop to the floor.

"Oh, God, how did I not see this coming," Liz whined as she watched Tracy drop the maroon blouse, "How else would she have been able to get them to move right where she wanted them to?" Liz had to admire Tracy's commitment, but was horrified by her method of distracting the two couples in the shop; beginning her striptease wearing an outfit both Rob and Hannah would recognize as being Liz's, one memorable enough that it had its own nickname, and with the bill of her her cap pulled down low over her face, Tracy's audience had to be thinking it was Liz they were watching strip!

After she discarded the blouse, Tracy performed a leisurely removal of the knee socks. She paused briefly, cupping her right hand behind her ear, apparently waiting for her fans to make a little noise. The four people on the other side of the glass were happy to oblige, giving Tracy encouragement she really didn't need.

Stunned to see Tracy tugging loose the ties holding her skirt in place, Liz wondered, "How far is she going to take this?" Seeing the skirt slip and slide down Tracy's legs convinced her she needed to do something to stop Tracy before Rob thought he was seeing his co-worker totally naked! She couldn't run out to physically stop Tracy from completing her strip, that would mean really letting Rob see her in the nude instead of just thinking he was!

Liz did the only thing she could think of to stop Tracy, shouting as loudly as she could, "Tracy, stop! They'll think it's ME they're watching strip!" The white noise of the fountain Tracy was near her might have masked Liz's pleas, or maybe her shouts just weren't loud enough; maybe by that point Tracy simply didn't want to hear her. Whatever the reason, Liz gave up on getting Tracy to stop, unable to look away as Tracy unhooked the bra and slid its straps off her shoulders. Tracy paused for a few seconds, giving Liz some hope that her show might be over.

Liz's hope that Tracy might leave her lingerie in place was short-lived. She watched as Tracy shook the bra loose, completely revealing her full breasts and their swollen pink nipples. Having seen Tracy come this far, Liz now fully expected to see the young mother peel her last scrap of fabric covering off.

Tracy didn't make the five people staring at her wait long. She slipped the fingers of each hand inside a side of the pink lace panties and wrapped her thumbs over the waistband. She turned her back toward her audience, bent over and dragged the waistband down slightly below the lower curve of her ass.

After pausing briefly to allow the raucous coffee shop crowd to enjoy the view, Tracy straightened up and turned back to face the voyeurs on the other side of the glass wall. She worked the panties down, an inch or so at a time until all they covered was a few inches of skin nobody was paying much attention to by that point near the middle of her thighs. She let go of the panties and the last bit of Liz's ensemble still in contact with Tracy's body fell to the lobby floor.

There was a short pause in the clapping, cheering, and whistling as the shock of seeing Tracy standing a few feet away, totally naked, stunned her audience. Still speaking at high volume, Jennifer asked Rob if he agreed with Hannah that they all had just seen his co-worker strip naked. Replying just as loudly he told her, "No doubt, the woman we're seeing looks a lot like Liz and was wearing an outfit a lot like one she has. But I've worked with Liz for more than a year, so I know her pretty well, and I'm telling you, no fucking way would Liz ever do anything like that!"

Tracy took a bow and hustled back to the spot where Liz had been watching her strip. She asked Liz, "Why are you still here? The whole point of me going out there was to distract everybody in the shop long enough for you to sneak over to the East stair unnoticed, go up to the roof level and bring down my clothing!"

"I tried to stop you when I saw that you were going to strip completely naked but you didn't hear me. You just made a guy I work with, his girlfriend who I used to work with, and two complete strangers believe they saw ME stripping!"

"Sorry," Tracy replied, "when I went out there I thought I'd just tease them a little, but I guess I got carried away. After what you did tonight you must know what it's like!"

"Yeah, I do. I know you were trying to help, but by this time tomorrow everyone I work with will think I really did get naked here tonight!"

"About that, I'm not so sure," Tracy said, "I could hear them talking once I was done; opinions differ about whether they just saw you in the nude, or someone else. The woman with really short black hair says it was you, but the guy wearing an apron insists it wasn't. I believe his exact words were, 'I'm telling you, no fucking way would Liz ever do anything like that!' Tracy smiled as she continued, "Well, they won't be entirely wrong either way. You actually did, strip, that is...just not in front of them!"

Liz thought about how many more people had actually seen her naked than the handful who now mistakenly believed they might have. She remembered how much more exciting actually stripping had been compared with simply having people she knew think she'd stripped.

"You should go upstairs and collect your clothes, Liz told Tracy, "but before you go, let me borrow this for a few minutes!" Liz plucked the baseball cap off Tracy's head, put it on with the bill pulled low, and headed over to the spot where Tracy had scattered Liz's clothing as she stripped. Starting out naked except for the hat, she began putting the discarded items back on, slowly undoing the striptease Tracy had just done. Rob, Hannah, and the other couple were intrigued enough to stay and watch her act, though the two guys were clearly disappointed to see her lovely body becoming steadily more concealed.

When every bit of her clothing was back in place, Liz felt her pulse pounding in her skull as she psyched herself up to make one last adjustment to her outfit.

Standing close to the glass wall, Liz pulled the hat off her head, lifted her face up, and smiled warmly as she said to Rob, "don't forget to lock up when you leave!"