Tell and Show

Tammy sat nervously at her desk and waited for her turn to arrive, purely so it could be over. She had never been the biggest fan of public speaking. The frustrating thing was that she was smart and articulate enough to aim for a top mark, and she always prepared herself diligently, but standing in front of her classmates, and being acutely aware that all eyes in the room were fully focused on her, invariably made Tammy feel too self conscious to perform at her best.

Kelly, in contrast, had the natural confidence to wing things like this without much effort. Tammy watched her cousin enviously as she brought her presentation on 1984 to a close. She could tell Kelly had probably only skim read the novel, or looked at a couple of reviews and memorised them as best she could. But she was really good at delivering what she was saying to the room.

"Thanks Kelly, that was very thought provoking" Professor Taylor, a stylishly dressed and still relatively young woman with a bohemian attitude, who Tammy liked very much, summed up at the end of that talk "Okay, Tammy, you're up next!"

Tammy felt the usual fight or flight sensations she experienced before anything like this, as if her body was preparing her to fight a tiger rather than talk for a few minutes in front of around thirty of her peers. She walked to the front of the room, turned to face her classmates and cleared her throat as she began.

"For my report I read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood" she announced by way of introduction, as confidently as she could manage.

Then Tammy paused for a moment. Something didn't feel right. Weirdly, it was her shoes. They suddenly seemed very tight and constrictive. She knew she couldn't think straight as long as she had them on. There was only one thing for it - if she wanted to give a competent talk she was going to have to lose them. She dropped to one knee and began untying her shoelaces, then decided that, while she was down there, her socks might as well go too, allowing her feet to breathe properly.

"Are you okay Tammy?" the professor asked with a look of mild concern at this slightly puzzling behaviour.

"It's fine, I can keep going" Tammy looked up at her classmates as she continued to talk.

"The book is set in a dystopian future, where the US government has been overthrown by a patriarchal totalitarian state known as the Republic of Gilead"

Tammy stood up again. That hadn't fixed it, something still felt very wrong. Instinctively, she began to unbutton her trousers, as if unable to stop her hands from doing so.

"Tammy, what are you.."

"The novel explores themes of powerless women in a patriarchal society, as well as the loss of female agency and individuality, as bright and healthy young women are reduced to mere sexual objects to be enjoyed by others"

As Tammy spoke those words she let her trousers drop to the floor and stepped out of them. There were excited gasps throughout the room.

"Oh, I see what you're doing!" Professor Taylor called out approvingly "It's bold and provocative, but it's also clever and pertinent. Within the context of this presentation, I'm going to allow it!"

But Tammy actually didn't know what she was doing. Could this be the result of an accidental command she had been given? She vaguely remembered Tina making a joke about her stripping when she was in front of an audience. She had been sure she hadn't called her Tammy or Tamsin before saying it, but it sure seemed like that was what was happening now, regardless.

Tammy looked over towards the mobile she had tantalisingly left on her desk. That had a ton of command emails from Tina that she could use to fix this before it got totally out of hand.

"Um, Professor Taylor, can I grab my phone please?"

"No notes Tammy" came the answer "There's no need anyway, you are doing great"

Tammy could only hope there were email commands available to her that could fix this mess retrospectively. Because for now it looked like she was trapped in Tina's joke turned command and, if she remembered the wording correctly, her friend had accidentally decreed that she would strip all the way until she was fully naked.

"Theocracy became a tool of the Patriarchy in Gilead" Tammy explained as she slowly unbuttoned her shirt and let it fall open to tease her classmates with her toned stomach, before pulling her arms out of it and allowing it to join the rest of her discarded clothing on the floor behind her "The regime uses a distorted interpretation of Biblical texts to justify the oppressive sexualisation of young women"

She was down to her white, cotton underwear now. The look on her classmates faces was like nothing she had ever witnessed before - a mixture of excitement, disbelief and undisguised lust. Something about the fact that it was Tammy, one of the mildest and most reserved of students, who had apparently taken such a daring approach to her presentation seemed to make this all the more thrilling to the room.

By this point Tammy had realised she couldn't stop this herself, and it seemed that nobody else was going to intervene. Her only option was to ride it out as best she could. While continuing her talk, she fiddled with the strap at the back of her bra until the clasp unhooked.

"The Republic of Gilead justifies the use of the Handmaids for procreation via stories from the Book of Genesis. This is a clear example of theocracy being used to oppress women and reduce them to mere sex objects, a parallel the author is clearly drawing with how young women may still be viewed in modern day western civilisation"

Tammy removed her bra so she was standing topless in front of her classmates, her large and firm boobs on full display and being devoured by thirty pairs of hungry eyes.

Even the straight, female members of her cohort were spellbound now. Tammy had her audience in the palm of her hand, but she really didn't want them to be there, At least, not like this. She couldn't believe Professor Taylor hadn't jumped in to stop her presentation by this point, but her tutor clearly thought it was all part of a planned performance that related to the text. At least she was coming towards the end now.

"Jezebels are women who are **** to become prostitutes and sexual entertainers, to parade their bodies for the pleasure of others. They are described as attractive and educated, though they are still not deemed suitable to be treated as equal citizens. Perhaps this is also an allusion from the author as to how some women are seen and treated in modern society"

The panties had now gone too. Tammy was standing in class giving a book report while fully naked. This was actually happening. She felt pretty sure it wouldn't have under Philips' watch. The nude student did her best to bring things to a close as quickly as she could.

"So, that concludes my report on the Handmaid's Tale. I I hope I was able to illustrate some of the overriding themes regarding the **** sexualisation of defenceless young women effectively, and that you found my presentation style engaging"

The class erupted, everyone applauding and whooping wildly, then some of Tammy's classmates began to rise to their feet. Before long, the whole room was giving her an ovation. Professor Taylor strode over and stood next to her new star pupil, grinning proudly.

"Tammy, that was sensational. What a courageous and visually arresting way to emphasise how healthy, fertile young women must have been made to feel in such a dystopian nightmare. You go straight to the top of the class!"

"Thank you!" Tammy nodded graciously as she scooped up her clothes and returned to her desk, while the next student with the unfortunate task of having to follow that walked past her. As soon as she had dressed, she picked up her phone. Thanks to the wording of the command which Philip had devised and Tina had recently repeated, she was able to find the email she needed in seconds. The title merely read 'recent unintended nudity'. She clicked it open.

Tammy, nobody will remember that you were naked today.

She turned and gave Kelly a nudge.

"Hey, what did you think of my presentation?" she whispered.

"It was awesome. Though I'm not sure why. What you were saying wasn't that interesting, but I couldn't take my eyes off you for some reason. In fact, I really didn't want it to end. You must have incredible stage presence"

Tammy leaned back in her chair and smirked to herself. Weirdly, she was buzzing now. She had just given a naked book report in class, received a top grade for it, and nobody but her even remembered that she had only performed so well because she was nude. Perhaps she would treat Philip to the full, uncensored version of her Handmaid's Tale review sometime, and allow him to recall it later.

---

"Hey"

Haley had approached Kelly almost awkwardly as she caught up with her at the end of their lessons. The pair had been thick as thieves practically since birth, but Carl and his controlling commands over Haley had placed a huge wedge between them.

"Hey, are you going over to your boyfriends again this evening?" Kelly enquired glumly.

"Yes, unfortunately" Haley sighed.

"Unfortunately? I thought he had you all loved up"

Haley paused for a moment, as if deciding how much it was safe for her to divulge.

"How are you getting on with Martin? How did your talk go?"

"Great, actually. He's basically a good guy. He's letting me go, but I can't until we get you away from that freak you're dating. You are the only person I would ever want as my mistress, but not with how things are now"

"Yeah, well there may have been some progress on that" Haley decided to reveal "He fucked up a command. I still have to act the devoted girlfriend so he doesn't realise, but I have some agency to do my own thing now. I think between the two of us we can figure this out"

"Shit Hales, that's awesome" Kelly's mood had lifted in an instant "The guy is a total fuckwit. Now you aren't completely under his spell, we can outmanoeuvre him for sure"

"Hopefully" Haley didn't sound quite as optimistic about how simple this would be.

"Hey, can you imagine us as each other's mistresses" Kelly grinned wickedly "The kind of shit we could get up to. I might actually start to love being cursed"

"Yeah, knowing us I'm sure we could get pretty creative with it. I doubt either of us would ever wear clothes again" Haley agreed with a giggle before her cousin moved forward and hugged her tightly.

"It's so good to have my favourite person in the world back. Kind of back, anyway"

"It's good to be kind of back too" Haley gave a bittersweet half smile "But right now, I'd better head over to Carl's place"

"You know, Martin lives there too, and me and him are pretty tight now" Kelly thought out loud "I'll come with you"

---

"So how did your talk go?" Tina asked when she caught up with her closest friend that evening.

"I aced it. Although I had to do it naked. But nobody remembers that part thankfully, just that they all loved it" Tammy grinned "I think you have an accidental command to undo"

"Oooohhh yeah.." Tina suddenly recalled her quip that must have caused that to happen "Okay, let me fix that for you. As you probably now realise, Annie has started working for commands. So I basically can't call you anything"

"You said you had an important job for me?"

"Yeah, I do" Tina confirmed "Are you familiar with a concept referred to as the Purest Petersen?"

"No, and I'm not sure I like the sound of it to be honest" Tammy wrinkled her nose.

"Well, whoever the Purest Petersen is, they can potentially break the entire curse and free everyone from it. So I'm going to give you super detective skills to find them"

"Okay, but where would I even start?"

"It's the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter, and so on, of the first woman who was cursed. Her name was Isabel Petersen, she was from Lincoln in England and this all happened in 1625"

"Okay, give me my new powers and I'll get on it right away" Tammy grinned confidently "I feel like I can accomplish anything today"