A Stronger Wind

The mirror maze echoed with the tornado roar of the industrial air jet, imported from Eastern Europe, where they took funhouses seriously. The shirt stood no chance. As Nathan watched, taken aback by what he'd unleashed, it was blasted straight off Emily's body.

He blinked. He had no idea what he was seeing. He'd never been to the carnivals of Czechoslovakia, where dozens of peasant girls at a time were stripped at the touch of a button, spread-eagled for the peasant boys and sent home with a slap on the bottom. He'd never read the CIA reports on Soviet upskirt experiments, procured by Mr. Jackson at great expense from a shady contact in Washington, D.C. with a love of panty-shots so private that even the Pentagon didn't know about it. All he knew was that Emily's shirt had been on, and now it was off.

Emily looked up, beseechingly, at the ceiling. She couldn't spot the hidden vent that her shirt had disappeared into. She didn't know about the CIA reports, either. She didn't know any more than Nathan did.

She looked down at herself, then back up at her reflection in the mirror, as if expecting it to tell her something different. Her eyes went very wide.

Then she squealed, and clasped her hands to her body, pressing her knees together very tightly, even though she knew for a fact that nobody was looking. Except her, and her reflections.

She was nude!

And everywhere she looked, she was surrounded by naked images of herself. She was nude a hundred times over.

She'd lost all her clothes in the funhouse!

And that meant she was going to have to find her way out of the funhouse completely naked!

As she crouched and whimpered, trying not to look at the dozen naked Emilys that surrounded her, Nathan's mind was racing.

He almost felt sorry for her. Imagine losing all your clothes on your first day of work!

On the other hand, imagine how funny it would be to watch somebody else lose all their clothes on their first day of work!

Especially if that somebody was a pretty girl. And you were, if not quite their boss, at least their immediate supervisor.

Well, he didn't have to imagine it. It was happening right in front of him. And a number of plans were beginning to form in Nathan's mind. A number of plans that would make the rest of the day very memorable for that poor, naked, unlucky, smug bitch Emily.

Of course, he thought, he could be the bigger man. Yes. That would be the right thing to do. Surely even smug bitches deserved a little bit of respect. After all, they were still women.

Maybe he should ignore his own worst impulses. Maybe he should just let her go.