The Streak – whoops

“Yellow stripes,” Emily stammered.

Ron whistled through his teeth. Emily hugged her legs a little tighter to her chest; they said that was the Streak, who…

There were too many types of radiation to keep track of, why did she need to get hit by the nudity-inducing kind rather than the superpower-granting sort? But if Teddy was right about it disintegrating clothes…

“How long does it last?” Emily said nervously.

“I don’t know exactly,” Teddy began.

“Four days, eleven hours, fifty three minutes,” Jackie said.

Emily flushed deeper. Oh. She squirmed a little more under her desk, wriggling, starting to become very aware of the carpet against her butt, and the wood around her.

“Okay, I’ll just… work from home,” Emily said. “Yeah, I can do that.”

Ron whistled again, this time sceptically.

“Good luck with that, Van never lets anyone work from home,” Ron said. “He prefers having everyone here to boss around.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t exactly normal circumstances,” Emily said. “I’m sure he’ll be… understanding.”

“It’s Van,” Jackie said.

Still, Emily was nothing if not unnecessarily and unrealistically optimistic. After her coworkers left her office, and after a few minutes whispering motivational speeches to herself, she finally managed to stand up.

The door to her office was open. She was halfway to squealing and crouching behind her desk again before talking herself out of it. She had to go talk to Van after all. She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and took a few sheets of loose paper from her desk to hold over her breasts.

They dissolved after a couple of steps. Cheeks burning, Emily kept walking, trying to hide what little she could of her body behind her arms. She walked as quickly as she could to Van’s still alarmingly glass-walled office.

He was on the phone. Emily waited awkwardly, one arm over her breasts, one hand over her sex, and her butt bared to the glass wall and the office behind her.

“I swear, if you say something like that again I will send my lawyers to sue you for every penny you have,” Van hissed into the receiver. “Goodbye mother.”

He slammed the phone down, took a breath, then looked up.

“Hi so I was wondering if I could work from home for a few days,” Emily said. “That’s great, I’ll just be…”

“What?” Van said. “No, no one works from home. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘an office is like…’”

Emily squeaked, urgently curtailing what she felt sure was going to be a lengthy analogy. This really wasn’t the time for that!

“I, er, got hit by one of those nudifying supervillains and, well,” Emily said.

“Oh, I knew something was different about you!” Van said. “I’m not just imagining it this time.”

“Sorry, what?”

“What’s your point?” Van said, quickly moving the topic on.

“Well I can’t work here like this…”

“Why not?”

“I’m naked!” Emily squeaked.

“Emily, Emily, Emily,” Van said. “There comes a time in every woman’s life where she just has to go to work naked. You can’t just back out from it when it’s your turn.”

“I don’t think that’s a thing,” Emily said.

“Nonsense!” Van said. “Look at Lois Lane, she has half the supervillains in the world after her, and that includes the nudity ones, and she gets on with things. All you need is practise.”

“But.”

“Request to work from home denied!” Van said.

Emily squeaked. Then before she could say anything else, there was a muffled cackle and a small explosion, another local supervillain Jack O’Lantern shooting past Van’s window.

At least he just blew things up like a normal criminal, rather than this.

Smoke started filling the office. Jackie hurried in through the door, accidentally brushing Emily’s side and making her squeal again.

“We got bombed,” she said.

Van sighed. “Where this time?”

“Er, Emily’s office,” Jackie said. “It’s… non-existent.”

“Okay, Emily, back to your old desk,” Van said. “Get back to work!”

Her old desk? Her old desk was in the middle of the floor! There was a reason she wanted her own office.

Emily stared incredulous, naked, fidgeting, really hoping something else would happen. Then, remembering the last few events, amended that. Something good would happen.