Tami Beethoven

Exhaling, as if in weariness and exasperation, Dr. Konrad said, "It took me a while to find the referenced protocols, they are supposedly on the Department of Defense web site but the link is dead. They are a relic of a time when it was much harder to get contracts for core services. That's a term of art, it means things the Army, for example, traditionally does for itself. That includes uniforms. I know this, I used to be in Quartermaster Corps. One of my old pals had the protocols in his files."

He made a limp-wristed wave at a thirty-page fax to his side. "The relevant provision is a kind of bootstrap, where you have get a similar contract before you get THIS contract. And it has to be with a, what it calls a 'qualifying institution'."

"What does that mean?" Rod said.

Dr. Konrad looked up at the naked girl. "In your situation, it basically means you have to win the International to get the advance."

Tami shut her eyes. "Oh Jesus." She crossed her arms in front of her, squeezing her breasts so that they spilled out over her arms.

"In the meantime this company, this, uh, Graywater Enterprises, they have dibs on the fabric you have invented. Since you haven't patented it, they are free to get a patent themselves, or declare it a government secret. I know that sounds unfair, but to quote Ronald Reagan, 'when you get into bed with government, you get more than a good night's sleep'."

"This is a private company, right?" Rod said. "How can they declare Cherish a government secret?"

"They can, trust me."

Finally Tami sat down, her now clammy butt sticking to the vinyl of the chair, and she drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees, as if to curl up into a ball, a very unusual gesture for her. Dr. Konrad had a full view of her lower lips, and the wink of butthole below. He tried not to look. Her toes flexed and writhed in front of her. "Lord... win the International!"

"You can use your fabric in your International submission, of course, because it would be what the contract calls 'for demonstration purposes'. But you can't sell it and you can't license it to anyone else."

Rod felt miserable for his poor wife. True, she had learned that she had made the finals of the competition, she would be going to the finals show in Montreal, two weeks from now. But she had also been told that the odds were against her winning. That would be so sweet if it happened, though. A fully paid scholarship to the Rhode Island School of Design, back in her home town, and if this status orgasmus experiment worked out she'd be back to fully clothed by then... "You can win it, Babe!"

Tami grunted, putting her head between her knees. "Maybe... maybe..."

"I have to be honest. You shouldn't delude yourself," the professor said. "The panel of judges who will be at that event in Montreal, well they have their own prejudices, or maybe I should say predilections. They are not familiar with the military, they are suspicious of what they picture as the military mentality, and they do not like Americans, especially recently. And now you have signed up to be, in essence, a defense contractor. There has been a lot of bad publicity about defense contractors lately. I won't lie to you. Having signed this . . . contract . . . will be a powerful mark against you, in their book. I would be on firm ground if I said it would in effect disqualify you."

"Can't I get out of it?"

"I'm afraid not. Listen, Miss Smithers," Dr. Kantor said, slouching and wrapping his hands in front of him, "I may seem cold about this but I'm supposed to be a lawyer to our fashion students, and a good lawyer must be honest with his client. Like everyone else around here I have a great deal of respect for you. And I understand the family pressures that caused you to rush into signing. But you're over 18, and there is nothing that can be called duress or unconscionability or anything else that the law recognizes as a reason to erase that signature. As far as legal protections go, you are now... shall we say... quite naked."

"This contract... it's a mark against her only if the judges know about it," Rod said. "What if they don't find out?"

"I won't say a thing. Halifax is sworn to secrecy too. But..." He paused. "The government has no problem outing people when it serves its purposes. And even if you won the International, if they found out about this contract later, and they almost certainly will, there could be adverse consequences."

Rod and Tami sat there in uneasy quietude, unavoidably facing the essence of what Dr. Konrad was saying. Tami had made a big, big mistake.

"So Cherish is... out..."

"From what I understand you are an accomplished designer, well apart from your involvement in that fabric. I've seen some of your 'Tami Original' designs, they're quite unorthodox but, in the hands of the right people, they could sell. Perhaps... aggressive marketing... of your brand..."

The silence of this remote, faint prospect hung heavy in the air. "Thank you, Dr. Konrad," Tami said. And she gathered up the contract and left with Rod.

She walked ahead of him, eshewing the elevator as usual, and Rod watched as her dusty bare feet slapped down the concrete steps. She descended loose limbed as if very tired, breasts bouncing, that wretched contract in her hand. When she came to a landing she stopped.

She looked out the window, onto a playing field, beyond which lay San Beueno Hall and, beyond that, the Chalfont Institute. On the field, girls in soccer uniforms were having a scrimmage in the springtime mud, running and kicking a ball around. They seemed happy, oblivious to the mud on their sneakers and tall socks. Happy and clothed. For once, Tami seemed unhappy about being naked. Having to forego orgasms the past few days, as part of her preparation for the status orgasmus session, didn't help. That certainly contributed to her inability to sleep.

Now he was chilled to the bone as Tami asked the questions he had dreaded for three years.

"Rod... how come I'm the only one in the world who is always naked? What's it like... to wear clothes?"

He couldn't think of how to answer that, except to say, "You'll know soon enough, Babe."

To Rod's surprise Tami sniffled and turned to him. A tear fell onto her nipple just before she buried her face in his jacket. "Oh Rod... I've let my family down... and how can I explain this to Gretchen? I've signed away all her hard work!"

. . . .

Gretchen, holding her arms up in the uncut sleeves, stood on the little stand in the Fashion Lab and looked down at the tired, bleary eyes of her best friend. Even her nipples drooped a bit, as if tired of facing the world 24/7.

"Ouch!"

"Sorry, Gretch." Another pin prick, very unusual for Tami. Her naked friend shook loose some threads that had gotten tangled between her toes and moved behind her to cinch up the back.

It was another attempt at getting that evening dress just right. On previous occasions Gretchen's boob kept popping out, to her intense chagrin, Gretchen being such a shy farm girl from a conservative background. Though at the moment she felt not shame but guilt, guilt she knew was irrational but felt nonetheless. Her fiance Roger, having survived a year in Iraq as a fighter pilot, was coming back in a couple of weeks, while Tami's brother got his tour extended at the last minute.

And there was the palpable guilt that Tami exuded, at having signed away the rights to Cherish. Gretchen had given Tami permission to sign for them. Despite this huge mistake she kept telling Tami, "It's OK, Tam, it's OK!" Surely Tami's family situation made the whole Cherish business trivial. Gretchen would have gladly signed away Cherish if it somehow would bring Joe back, or make Tami's father healthy again.

Now, watching Tami, with pins in her mouth, pick out a thread that had fallen into her plum-colored lower hair, she put her thoughts as gently as possible. "Tam, why don't you take a break? Go home and rest." Tami went back to cinching and Gretchen suppressed a yelp as she was pricked again, near the waist.

"No," Tami said with finality. Then she stood back, hands on her hips. "How is that?"

Gretchen hopped off the socle and landed softly on her stockinged feet.

Unknown to both of them, the door had swung open slightly. Students were passing by in the hall, on the way to the Intro to Fashion class. Mostly non-majors who had signed up for it as a lark, not realizing all the reading they would have to do. And now including Lorinda, who had mercilessly abused and tormented Tami during that awful freshman year, who had gotten that summer accounting job with Ned and Ethel that Tami had longed for... accompanied by her roommate Celine, who could just barely tolerate her.

"Turn, Gretch."

Gretchen turned and, unfortunately, her right boob once again popped out.

"Woooo!" squealed a delighted Lorinda, whose view through the open door was unobstructed.

"Oh Jesus!" Gretchen, suddenly aware of her audience, blushed furiously and drew the flap of Cherish over her right breast. Only now it was her left breast that popped out.

"Wooo! Wooo!" Lorinda squealed with delight. "Nice tits, Gretch!"

"Oh Lord Almighty..." Gretchen turned and fled to the dressing closet in teary-eyed shame.

Campbell - Frank's only naked student, a being possessed, flew through the opened door and tackled Lorinda. Then threw a punch square in the jaw with her powerful arm. A few seconds later Lorinda Summerton lay face-down in the hallway, surrounded by shocked students and faculty, motionless, with a pool of blood forming on the floor under her head.

Part 67

Sitting in the kitchen, Rod and Gretchen looked at their coffees and then up at each other.

"I don't hear a sound from up there," Gretchen said.

Rod nodded. Tami had been in the attic since they woke up an hour ago.

Gretchen hesitated at what she was to say next, but said it. "Aren't you afraid she'll do something... stupid?" She pictured Tami hanging by a noose.

Rod shook his head and took another sip. "All in all, Tami's seen worse." He thought of the stories he had dragged out of Tami about that naked cross-country trek back home. Nearly freezing and starving to death on the tar paper roof of a diner in Arizona. Nearly baking to death on the hot Texas chapparal, until she was rescued by that horse. Trussed up in that harness on that pony farm, almost going mad with pain as she refused to have that horrible fax sent to her father, while that tail dildo pounded her ovaries mercilessly. He thought again of what the Chalfont people had told him, that it was as painful as having one's testicles squeezed in a vise until they popped. He shifted uneasily in his chair.

"She'll find a way to survive. She always does. And she's with us, not alone. Surrounded by our love and our support."

"Amen." They both looked up at the ceiling. Then gazed out at the misty early April morning, hearing the birds sing as they fluttered among the newly sprung flowers. A season of hope and promise. "The cruellest month."

Then together they got up, Rod in his sweats, Gretchen in her bathrobe, and ascended the stairs silently, Rod in his stockinged feet, Gretchen in her tennis shoes.

The attic of this small house was a bare expanse of dusty hardwood boards, under the bare joists of the sloped roof, holding nothing except some boxes stored in the corners. Three peaked windows afforded a view of the street and Mrs. Blanton's house and the mountains beyond. As Rod and Gretchen ascended, the first thing that hit their eyes was the well-known ring of brown skin around Tami's anus, winking at them from between widely separated butt cheeks as she kneeled prone on the floor, her head down and her arms extended in front of her. To the side was a bottle of water and, further out, a laptop. Next to the laptop, an envelope with Tami's careful block lettering:

CPL JOSEPH P SMITHERS C CO,784 BSB 101ST INF DIV OIF VII FOB SPEICHER APO AE 03574

They recognized Tami's pose as one of her gymnastics positions. Now as they stepped up onto the boards she turned on her side, clasped one foot and veered into one of her stretch positions, legs split apart. Then with her hand she turned the upper foot so that it almost touched the low ceiling. The dust from the boards clung to her butt cheeks and the side of her thigh. Her pussy lips were split open and they hung out obscenely, engorged with arousal from days and days of not having release. The smell of female filled the room. Rod's dick stiffened at this natural signal, despite his mood. As he sat down cross-legged with Gretchen he had to shift it around so it ran down his leg.

Tami turned again and now she faced them, legs apart in a split, hands in front. Then she extended her hands out to rest on her knees and opened her dexterous toes. The toes spread so wide they looked like fingers opening to clasp a softball. Like a chimpanzee's feet. Rod thought of lightening the mood by saying "Ooo! Ooo!" but changed his mind.

"How are you holding out?" Gretchen said at last.

Tami reached over to the water bottle and took a sip. Her face, drawn with lack of sleep, was serious but somehow serene. "Considering I'm under indictment, and under the college code of conduct I'm suspended from classes and barred from campus, and I've signed away our invention and my degree is in grave danger and I might be expelled, and my brother is in a combat zone and my dad is in critical condition, I'm OK."

Thank God Lorinda hadn't been killed. Tami was so strong that one punch could have done it. But Lorinda's jaw was broken, and had to be wired shut for at least a month. And then there was that arraignment. Judge Prudence Staton, in shock, had listened to the heartbroken Assistant D.A., Miss Granby-White, ask for a charge of first degree aggravated assault. Tami had listened nakedly and almost in tears next to the exquisitely dressed Marcus McIntyre as Lorinda's mother, a stringy-haired shrew who was like an older version of her daughter, screamed for a charge of manslaughter. But the judge wouldn't do that.

Then the judge really set Lorinda's mother off by refusing to set bail. It was patiently explained that the purpose of bail was to prevent flight and Tami was not a flight risk, not only because she was Tami but because it was hard for a naked woman to flee town without detection. This did not satisfy Lorinda's mother one bit. Rod supposed he could sympathize. After all, her daughter had almost been killed.

Rod's and Gretchen's thoughts were interrupted by the naked young woman, speaking with her hands on her knees again, her pussy lips languid and hanging down, right in their face, her toes separated. "I've made three big mistakes. I yelled at Yvette and she almost committed suicide, then I signed that contract, then I socked Lorinda in the jaw. From now on . . . ooohhh . . . nothing stupid. Everything I do has to be exactly the right thing."

That shudder was a product of her extreme horniness. Rod hated to see her suffer. "Babe... let's go to bed. I'll lick you." Which made Gretchen blush.

"No!" the naked girl said firmly. "I have to stay -- unsatisfied. The buildup to the -- status orgasmus. When I get into clothes again. And can lead a normal life and find a job where I can."

The three sat on the floor in silence, Rod and Gretchen cross-legged, Tami in her split. Then Rod said, "I think there was a lot behind that punch you gave Lorinda."

"There's no need to psychoanalyze me, Baby. I know EXACTLY why I punched her so hard... It was all that shame from my freshman year coming out. I thought I'd let it go, but it was still inside me. When she started in on someone else, on my best friend, well then I had to..." All this delivered without emotion, with clear-eyed, or maybe cold-eyed, seriousness. Tami seemed like a different person. There was no joy in her. No sense of dreams and hope. Just brutal honesty.

Gretchen thought of something Jen had told her, of Lorinda's finger up Tami's butt, feeling the rectal contractions as Jen brought Tami to orgasm after orgasm at that demonstration arranged by Dr. Congi in the basement of the admininistration building. "She's squeezing my finger to death!" Lorinda had squealed, as her immature friends had held Tami's hands and feet, while Jen used all her skill to intensify and extend Tami's orgasms, not knowing the mortal shame Tami was suffering. Yet after all that freshman year humiliation, it was only when Gretchen herself had been shamed, that Tami let her anger out.

"So now what?"

Tami said, "Well... I can still keep up with classes by e-mail. My professors are seeing to that. And I've been looking at... options."

She pivoted on her butt to the laptop and turned it on with her pinky toe. In a moment Rod and Gretchen were shocked to see it was set to some kind of porn site.

"Watch this," Tami said. "She calls herself the Pussygun."

A quick video showed a platinum blonde with fake breasts, naked except for high glass heels, spreading her legs and leaning back and squirting a stream of what looked like water from her crotch.

"That's easy," Tami said, extending her foot to pause the video with her second toe. "I can do better."

Rod's heart sank because he knew Tami's talents and knew what she was about to do. It was a surprise to Gretchen, though. Tami upended the water bottle into her pussy, then turned toward the windows. She raised her widely spread legs on flat bare feet, raised her butt off the floor, then with quick grunts she directed a narrow, laser-like stream at each window, hitting each dead center. She managed a second hit on each before the water ran out.

"I've looked into it," the naked young woman said. "Setting up the web site and the cam is easy. And I'll use an alias. Maybe pixellate my face. Nobody will ever know it's me."

"Oh Babe..." Rod said. "That would be so..."

"Cheap?" Tami's eyes flashed. "Rod, even once I get into clothes, even if they let me graduate, I won't be able to make real money for a long time. My family needs cash NOW."

"And I have other tricks too. Like this." She leaned forward and reached one of Gretchen's sneakers with her feet. Then did her trick of untying the laces with her toes. And tying them up again. "And then there's putting that tail in. I bet not many women could do that. And the gymnastics. Not many totally naked gymnasts on the web, from what I've seen. Or at least no good ones. If I can learn to do status orgasmuses at will, that will be an extra. Put it all together, probably a unique site. I should draw a lot of paying subscribers. And, on top of that, there's Teaser's, or some such place."

"Oh Babe..." Rod said again.

"It won't be so bad," Tami said, deadpan. "I'll be cured by then and can wear clothes for my day job, maybe being a grad assistant. Again, if they let me get my degree. This web site will be my cash cow, though. I can work on it on weekends."

That she had carefully thought this all through made it worse. Rod and Gretchen looked at her, then at each other, in great sadness.

Now Gretchen contemplated the envelope with the military address on it. Similar to the address she used to write her fiance Roger, whose tour ended next week. "I see Joe got promoted to Corporal."

"It's lateral only," Tami said. "Same pay grade as Specialist. Only now he can order Privates around. Necessary now that he's in a combat zone. . . I'm writing him a long letter explaining what happened." Tami exhaled, raggedly, then stood up, her head nearly touching the joists. She shook her muscles all over, evidently to redistribute the blood that kept collecting in her pelvis. Her breasts bounced and she looked down at her two companions. In a perfunctory sign of vanity, she ran her fingers over the short hair on her head, then fluffed up the plum-colored hair below. "Joe's gotten a lot more interesting to talk to now that he's grown up. The Army matured him. I think it might be good therapy for me, to explain myself."