Brief Encounters

She arranged the slippery silk panties and the gossamer hose in her fingers and began easing both up her calves. Once she had them high enough, she would quickly stand and tug everything over her hips. At the same time her skirt would fall down, covering all the vital places. It could work, but it was a delicate operation.

Her calves were covered and she was inching the panty hose over her knees when he let out a sharp sigh of impatience. She began to hurry and the panties slipped from her fingers and balled up in the nylons. She kept going out of fear, but every tug made it worse. The nylons had curled into an airtight roll, sucking the panties in with them. They looked like link sausages. Damn! Now she would have to start all over.

“Time’s up,” he announced.

“Wait a minute!” Springing to her feet, Swan brushed her skirt down and gingerly coaxed the lingerie up at the same time. For a second she thought it was going to unfurl, but that glimmer of hope was her downfall. It made her hurry even more. She couldn’t see what she was doing because of the skirt’s ruffly hem, so she yanked the silly thing back up and stuffed a wad of it in her mouth, clenching her teeth to hold it while she worked. She felt like a Flamenco dancer with an entire bouquet of roses in her teeth.

Now the black silk material was rolling up, too! It had slipped in between her tummy and her underwear. She would soon be nothing but one big airtight wad, encased in nylon.

“Cuuduuupleeeeleeee!” she mumbled, asking him nicely to leave.

Her skirt was disappearing and her halter top would be next. Everything she owned had decided to tie itself into knots, including her tongue.

“Neeeeesummpriiisee.” She needed privacy. Couldn’t he see that?

Her struggles just twisted things tighter. And now her fingers were caught. Desperate, she released the skirt from her teeth and began to fumble inside her panty hose in earnest. She had to find her bikinis and separate the warring pieces of lingerie. Her hand was still buried inside her undies when he glanced her way, but there was nothing she could do about it. She’d been taken hostage by her underwear.

“What are you doing?” Gaines asked.

“Concealing a weapon,” she said sarcastically.

Big mistake. Big.

Evidently, federal law enforcement officers didn’t appreciate a little harmless gun humor. Without warning, Gaines spun around to face her. His eyes narrowed in disbelief as he saw her Houdini-like predicament. If someone had tossed her off a bridge, she would have drowned before she could get her hands free.

Swan tried to extricate herself, but she couldn’t. It was like being restrained with Saran Wrap. Somehow she had created a slipknot, perhaps out of an elastic leg hole, and it wasn’t about to let go of her fingers.

Gaines closed the distance between them in two easy strides. “What have you got in there?”

“Nothing! It’s just my underwear!”

“The hell you say. You’re trying to shove something into your panties.”

Swan gave him a look of utter exasperation. “I am not trying to shove anything into my panties. I’m trying to get something out of them. And it’s not working.”

Before she could explain, she felt herself being spun around like a toy top. The way he gripped her wrist and pulled, he didn’t seem to care whether or not he left her fingers behind. Fortunately it only took one firm tug to free her and then he yanked both of her hands behind her back.

“Hey, is that necessary?” she said as handcuffs locked down on her wrists.

“We’re going to clear this up and we’re going to clear it up now.”

Gaines turned her around and scrutinized her from head to toe. It was obvious from his perplexed expression that he had no idea how a woman could have been strait-jacketed by her own clothing in mere moments. And with no help from anyone else.

“You did this to yourself?” he asked.

Swan glanced down and let out a little moan of despair. A skirt that would normally have covered her legs to mid-calf now exposed her from her belly button downward. The link-sausage undies were an awful sight, but at least she wasn’t dealing with full-frontal nudity. She was too mortified to even consider what her backside must look like. From the way it felt, she was going to have to keep her rear to the wall at all times.

Swan wasn’t sure it was possible to be more humiliated.

Rob Gaines proved her wrong.

“I have to search you,” he said.

Swan shook her head so hard she nearly lost her balance. “I want a female officer to search me!”

His shrug said, Sure, whatever you want, lady. “Let’s go then.”

He pointed to the door, but she didn’t move. “Go where? I can’t even walk.”

“Headquarters. If you want a female, that’s where we’re going.”

If angry glares could burn, he would have been charcoal briquettes. “All right,” she sighed. “Get it over with then.”

“I should call in my partner,” he said.

“No! Search me, dammit. Frisk me, pat me down, probe my body cavities, whatever the hell you have to do, just do it and get it over with.”

“Thanks for all the options,” he said dryly. He placed his palms on her waist and began to frisk her in a way that was totally professional but not at all reassuring. He was thorough and patient as he slid his hands along the curves and swells of her body. He never touched her inappropriately. He never even spoke, but there was something about the feathery pressure of his fingers, or maybe it was his smoky aftershave or the heat of his breathing, that elicited what Swan could only call unwelcome sensations. Whew. He was everywhere with his velvet-soft hands, even inside her thighs.

Swan’s stomach took an express ride down, and her heart went the opposite direction. A weird tremble crept into her breathing, and she very nearly emitted an audible sigh of relief when he stopped. If her panties weren’t damp before, they certainly were now.

“Thanks,” she said, willing strength back into her legs.

Apparently satisfied that she was unarmed, he stepped back and studied her hopelessly snarled clothing. “Want me to fix that?”

It was either him or the bomb squad. “Sure.”

“Okay, but it may take surgical intervention.”

“Meaning you’re going to cut off my underwear?”

“Meaning I’ll try to untangle it, but if I can’t, this is Plan B.” He pulled a penknife from an inner pocket of his jacket and set it on the vanity table. “Either way, I’ll have to go in.”

“Go in where? Hey!” Swan gasped as he stretched her panty hose out like a slingshot and delved into her drawers. “Hey, stop that!”

His hand was much too large not to touch things it shouldn’t. So much for professionalism. Something brushed her pubic hair and she let out a squeal.

“What is this?” she cried, “some kind of macho payback for pulling your pants down?”

To his credit, he didn’t respond. He went about his business, feeling around some more, working the knots like a safecracker. He plucked and toggled and tugged, but nothing seemed to give way. When he went to pull his hand out, it didn’t give, either. He was stuck.

Swan let out a horrified gasp. This could not be happening.

“We seem to have a problem,” he said.

“No, we don’t,” she informed him in barely audible tones. “Just amputate your hand at the wrist and we’ll be fine.”

His expression told her he didn’t think much of her suggestion. In fact, if she’d been a zoo animal, and he’d had a tranquilizer gun, she would have been headed for a very long nap.