Lady of the Rings
by Brandy Dewinter and Ellen Hayes
(All rights reserved)
Chapter 15 - No Thief In This Night
Build 3
I almost escaped to help Tom, but the Colonel found me first.
"Brittany!" he called. "Why aren't you in costume? The gates open
in 30 minutes."
"I, um, went downtown for the afternoon. I'll be ready." I
promised.
"Well, don't dawdle. I asked Tom to move his act up in the show.
You're now on third, behind the tumblers but before the horses. That
should take care of your complaints about the . . . things . . in the
ring."
Well, a bit of good news for a change. "Yes, sir!"
He dismissed me with a wave and I headed off to the trailer. With
half an hour I could have dressed completely and still have 20 minutes
change, back when I was a guy. As a girl, it would take every bit of
that time, especially in my scanty show costume. Why is it that the less
clothes you wear, as a woman, the more time it takes to get ready?
The sense of being able to hide behind a mask of makeup had quickly
worn off, and the bother of slathering on all the potions Sarah had first
used became the worse evil so I had toned my showgirl face down quite a
bit. It was still much more dramatic than my daytime look but I let a
lot more of my basic skin show through. Still, every single time I had
to consider "my" look, I added another promised lash to Andreas' punish-
ment.
There was no way to tone down the scantiness of the costume though.
It was blatantly provocative by design. I slithered into the two pairs o
of tights and then into the tiny leotard. It always amazed me how much
cleavage that shiny thing left uncovered. One of these days I was gonna
bend over to pick something up at the same time I breathed, and get
arrested.
I was still pulling on my gloves when I got to the backstage area.
Tom was looking anxious, but he usually did before a show.
"Ah, there you are, looking good as ever," he smiled.
"The Colonel told me your act was moved up," I explained.
"Britt, I wish you'd accept that you're an important part of the
act, too. It's 'our' act, not just mine."
"All I do is stand around and look silly," I denied his assertion.
"You and the dogs do all the work."
"Lady, if your look is silly, then the clowns are somber in their
big noses and flappy shoes, because you're not even in the same universe
with them."
I was ready to pick up on his remark about clowns, but just then
the Colonel (who was our ringmaster) was announcing our act. The grips
moved the props out into the ring and the show was on.
It went about as usual. One of the Cairns, Buffy (isn't that
precious? Gag!) had become especially interested in jumping up to pat my
fanny during the act. Instead of running away after each time, though,
she flopped on her back and wiggled from head to toe. The first time she
had stayed within range, during a practice, I had scolded her. She
looked so devastated that I had picked her up and given her a hug before
sending her back to her ride. Now, she always wiggled at me for a hug
before running back to her duties and I always gave her a quick cuddle.
The audience loved it, though I'm not sure why. I didn't do it for them.
I just liked animals, especially when they appreciated a little affection
so much more than humans seemed to.
We kept up with our parts in the show, though. In an always-surpri-
singly short time, we were taking our curtain call (can you do that in a
circus with no curtain?) and our performance was over.
That gave me the opportunity to go back to the dorm trailer and get
out of my show costume. That was the good news. The bad news was that I
now had to wear the princess costume. In some ways it was worse.
Certainly the corset was stiffer, though not really tight. It made me
maintain a careful, elegant posture that I supposed was good, though I'd
just as soon not be forced. And the skirt covered my legs, but at the
price of a continuous incipient trip and fall. Still, it was better than
being nearly naked.
The last item of my costume was a marker pen I slipped up my sleeve.
I had learned to carry one with me. Seeing little girls' adoration at
the thought of a princess made that seem worthwhile, at least. It was
interesting to me to see who picked up on the significance of the name,
Isolde. That made me reexamine at least one of my own prejudices when
it became apparent that those who knew the reference could not be charac-
terized by apparent wealth or education. It seemed I had a bit of snob in me.
I made my slow and graceful (like I had a choice in that corset and
skirt) way to the carousel to take my shift and relieve Jim. He clanked
out of the booth in his armor, which always provoked a horde of rubes to
take pictures of the two of us together. After the photo rush was over
Jim clanked off and I took tickets and ran the 'round.
I was kept pretty busy with lots of kids showing up to ride the
'round. Around 9:00 more or less, princesses don't wear G-Shock
watches, four guys in a group strolled by. If I'd have been alone, back
when I was Steve, I'd have started running right then. These guys were
about half drunk already and into that sort of out-toughing-each-other
idiocy that required helpless targets for exercise.
"Hey, Princess, how bout a kiss?" one slobbered up to me.
I stepped back behind the rail around the carousel to keep him from
getting close. Then stepped back again as the stench from his breath
threatened to melt the cardboard in my hat.
"Do you have a ticket for the ride?" I asked.
"I got something you'd like a lot better than a ticket, if we take a
ride," another punk leered.
"If you're not going to ride the carousel, please get out of the way
of those that do," I tried to stay polite.
"Stuck up bitch," the drunkest one slurred. Well, maybe not the
drunkest, it was hard to say.
I was just about to consider trying out Ivan's whistle alarm when
one of the local cops came by. The circus gave free admission to any
uniformed officers that wanted in. They were a great way to keep rowdies
in line without heavy-handed security measures. It sure worked this
time. The punks hustled off in a different direction than the strolling
cop and I took as deep a breath as my costume allowed.
My shift lasted until 10:00. After the drunk guys left it was just
the regular panic. As he often did, Jim showed up to close down for the
night.
"How'd it go?" he asked.
"Fine. I think we're getting more business since the Colonel star-
ted this costume thing."
He nodded, then smirked, "Well, at least the 'round is getting more
business. I'd buy a lot of tickets for the chance to - pause loaded with
innuendo - talk with a princess."
"Take more money than you got, buster," I thought. But I didn't
say that. Instead I dodged by replying, "Well, if you find a real
princess, let me know."
With that I was off to the trailer. Instead of undressing, or at
least staying undressed after I removed my princess getup, I put on a
dark shirt and jeans and my brown hiking boots.
I figured it was about three miles to the part of town with the
office building I needed to get into. That was a good hour's hike for
me, once upon a time. I felt I had learned to use this new body well
enough to handle the walk, but it would be the first time I had really
tried to set a good pace since my poor showing the day I was transformed.
Sneaking away from the circus was no problem. I often did that in an
evening when I wanted to unwind with my flute. I hid that away to make
my absence easily explained and set off for town. No hitchhiking this
time.
The walk was about as I expected. I made it in an hour but was more
tired than I should have been. Still, there was plenty of night left
when I ducked into shadows near my target. Unfortunately, those shadows
were quite a ways away from the building.
There was still a guard in attendance and the lobby was brightly
lit. By the time I got where I could observe it was close enough to
midnight that I just stayed put for a while, hoping that the guard would
close up at about 12:00. I figured getting by an alarm system would be
easier than crossing the exposed lobby in front of a guard.
No such luck. Midnight came and went and the guard just kept
watching his monitors. There wasn't much traffic through the office,
and all of that was going out, so there was no way to sneak inside with a
crowd. I had hoped that the night shift guard might not know as many of
the building's occupants but it didn't matter since no one was going the
way I'd need to go. Well, on to Plan B.
I worked my way around to the back of the building and found the
expected loading dock. Here I was in luck. Instead of enough cameras to
provide continuous coverage, they had a single oscillating observation
point. That only kept out the careless or the panicked. I was neither
so that problem was no problem at all. The camera didn't even provide a
good view of the personnel door next to the main loading dock. At the
appropriate time I sprinted across the drive and was at the smaller
access door.
That door was one that closed with a spring-loaded bolt. Those
are really only useful at keeping out the panicked, or the careless (at
least the building's security planners were consistent). With the help
of a couple of plastic cards, I was soon inside.
Now the penalties of my new body really exacted a price. I
couldn't use the elevators so I had to climb the 18 floors by way of
the fire stairs. The tingling in my ring got more and more intense all
the time and I knew I was getting closer to the next step in my quest.
Once again the door from the stairwell had a spring-loaded latch and I
was soon treading quietly along the office corridors. Here, the cameras
were fixed but time shared. The stupid security types had left a little
red light on the camera that came on when it was active though, and in a
few minutes I had the pattern worked out. Everything was going pretty
well until I turned the corner that revealed the offices of Brant, Wheat-
ley, and Davidson.
A glass wall, with glass doors, closed that office off from the
corridor and there were still people working inside! There was no way I
could sneak into the office. Since it was already after midnight and
there were several people working, I figured the company must have around
the clock shifts. So close! I knew that I needed to get into the
office, but I couldn't see any way to get in! That bastard Andreas
probably knew all about this setup.
Thinking of my main tormentor reminded me of why I was here in the
first place and I tried to get a line on the second ring. Once I opened
my mind to the auras a part of the decorations almost seemed to flash at
me like a neon sign. In the waiting room, tantalizingly close just in-
side the door, there was a fancy bas-relief frieze running along the back
wall. The carvings were supposed to represent Greek heroes or something
though I thought it had been done in a tasteless way. Instead of using
honest marble with texture supplied by the grain of the mineral, the
decorator had used what looked like simple plaster then dressed it up
with gilt highlights. One of the characters had a golden crown that
looked just the right size for my finger. What a coincidence. If I
could just get inside for a few seconds I could get the ring, even switch
with a fake if I needed to. If I could just get inside.
Right about then someone from inside the office wanted out and one
of the guys in a nearby cubicle got up to work the door lock. It was a
pretty good cylinder lock and I knew I'd never get it picked within the
time the surveillance camera covering that section of the corridor was
inactive, even if the room were deserted. That meant I probably couldn't
even chance a fake fire alarm. I was just going to have to get invited
inside. Somehow. I had no clue how to do that, but it was clear I
wasn't going to get it done that night.
On my way out I went clear to the parking garage in the basement.
The firm of Brant, Wheatley, and Davidson must have been pretty high-
rent because their office claimed the parking spots nearest the elevator.
There was no space for Brant, so the senior partner either got a limo
ride every day or had retired. I figured Wheatley was misogynistic
enough to be hopeless and also expected that the next several names
belonged to equally prejudiced people. That led me to focus starting
with the names about ten spaces from the door. Somewhere among these
names would be someone I could manipulate to gain entrance to the office.
Something of the aura of the people whose space was reserved lin-
gered about the garage. If I considered them carefully, I could get a
vague image of the person whose name appeared on the sign over each
space. This one was old, this one was happily married (congratulations),
this one was even more chauvinistic than his boss. There were no women,
of course. Apparently even executive secretaries didn't count for much
in the firm. I finally narrowed my candidates down to three names.
Johnson, whom I perceived to be weak but fastidious, a stereotypical
accountant. Tailor, who was apparently a field engineer of some sort,
rough and gruff. Even the tire tracks leading to his space had a heavy
tread like a pickup truck. The last was Cochran, whose faint aura seemed
to leave a scent of loneliness. I didn't know if the jobs I envisioned
matched the people and my experience at the circus had been a crash
course in avoiding prejudgments, but I felt I could recognize them by the
auras that echoed about me as I worked my way through the garage.
Once I had completed my reconnaissance I backtracked out of the
building and started hiking back to the circus.
I didn't think anything of the truck until it swerved and pulled up
in front of me. In it were four guys who looked distressingly familiar.
They were the ones who had hassled me earlier. Now, they looked twice as
drunk and four times as mean. It was clear they had "fun" on their
minds, of a sort I'd rather die than experience. Before the truck
stopped rolling, I was running.
I made it back to a convenience store, but they were closed. And
the phone was inside. Oh, shit.
I heard the truck pull up behind me again, with the guys shouting
stuff that would kill Miss Manners dead on the spot. I turned around,
and they had deployed out of the truck and spread out. It didn't look
like there was any way to get through them without having all of them
converge on me.
As I was backing up I decided that maybe I wouldn't kill Andreas
after all. I'd hurt him, certainly. I was in a hurting mood, but maybe
I wouldn't kill him. This sudden change of heart was brought about as I
literally stumbled over another coincidence that had his name written
all over it.
About 6 feet of coincidence.
A clothes rod from a closet.
A bit more than an inch in diameter, fine grain oak.
I picked it up and started to twirl it about my head.
"Oh, bitch wants to play rough," one of them said, and broke a beer
bottle against a crate. They were SERIOUS about this. Fear pulsed in my
heart, but I was cornered and the adrenaline I was generating needed
something to do so it began to trip me over the line from flight to
fight.
"Come on, slut, you know you want it," said another one, and they
all started to move in.
By this time I had accelerated the rod until the tip was howling
with an echo of the anger that I felt singing through my nerves. I
stopped retreating and began to move forward . . .
(
geocities.com/b_dewinter)