Between Thieves

"Do me a favor," she said to the nearly naked man. "Struggle a bit. I want to make sure that the ropes are good and tight."

The tape over his mouth kept him from saying anything so he just shot her a brief, strange look and then quickly obeyed. When a woman has you tied up, you do what she says. When your legs are spread and she's sitting across from you and resting her foot on the edge of your chair mere inches from your balls, you do what she says immediately.

So, he struggled. He shifted in the chair, strained to move his arms. He tried extra hard to close his legs, but he got nowhere. He was a strong man, in good shape, but it felt like he could wriggle all night and never get loose. Her knots were tight. She had him good. She caught him in his little bikini underwear, no shirt, no pants. His bare skin stung from the rope.

"No luck, right?" she said, shaking her head, eyes glimmering from behind the black mask over the top half of her face. "I'm pretty good at this, you think?" She smiled.

The man stopped struggling and stared razors at her.

"Do you mind if I smoke?", she said. She pulled out a pack of Camels from a compartment on her black leather belt and slid a lighter out from between her breasts. She never looked away from his seething face as she lit up a cigarette.

The only light in the room was from the city streets outside of the man's 36th floor luxury apartment, but it was bright enough that he was able get a good look at the woman for the first time. He tried to  figure out who she was, but he had no idea. Even with her mask, he could see that she was much younger than him, probably in her mid-20s, with dark brown hair and lustrous skin. She wore a black spandex catsuit that stretched skintight against every contour of her hourglass body. Even in his situation, the man found her sexy.

"It's a bad habit, I know," she said after exhaling her first drag. "If you're gonna sneak around like we do, it's important to be healthy, I think. I work my ass off to fit into this outfit. I work hard to be agile and strong so I can sneak into places... like your apartment tonight... quietly. I've dangled from roofs, I've climbed ropes, I've snuck into ventilation systems. I've done crazy things. And yes, yes, the boobs can be a problem..."

Her breasts swelled against her suit like two big, soft pillows. The neck of her outfit scooped down to show off a mile of cleavage.

"... But", she continued, "they can also be an advantage. I'm very aware of their power to distract. When you saw that I'd broken into your apartment and you tried to fight me, you looked down at my chest twice, which gave me the upper hand. It definitely made it easy for me to kick you in the balls and win. You've looked down at my boobs four times as I've been talking to you right now."

It was true. The tied-up man blushed a little.

The woman smiled, enjoying his embarrassment.

"Sorry about your balls, by the way", she said after a drag off the Camel. "I can only imagine how much that hurts, especially with these pointy boots I have on. I've never seen a guy take a kick to the nuts well. Sometimes a man can tough it out and remain upright, but he's shaky. You can tell that he really wants to curl up on the floor and do some quiet contemplation."

She put out her cigarette and then reached into her belt. She pulled out something that he couldn't see.

"But," she continued, "you know what must really hurt? Having your balls cut off."

It was a switchblade. She touched a button and a knife flicked out.

The man's insides froze over with fear. He began to struggle at the ropes again, but quietly so as not to excite the woman with the knife.

"That has to suck," she said. She glanced down at the bulge in his briefs and then looked back up at his nervous face. "Not only does it hurt, but it pretty much changes a man because that's where your testosterone comes from. Without your balls, you kind of become a girl in certain ways. Now, since you're an adult, your voice won't get high and your facial hair won't stop growing, I don't think, but your natural muscle mass will fade away and you'll start to need help opening jars. Your sex drive will disappear. Some castrated men even grow boobs because the distribution of fat on their body becomes more like a woman. I think that's how it works, at least. Bottom line: you don't want to lose your nuts."

She looked the man right in the eye and stroked the flat of the knife with her other hand. He wanted to moan, but he didn't dare.

The woman stood up and stepped behind the man. She laid the knife down on top of a fancy liquor cabinet nearby and rubbed his bare shoulders for a bit.

"Wow, you are tense," she said. She grabbed a small towel that was on top of the liquor cabinet and dabbed sweat off of his bald head and his shoulders. She then tossed the towel aside, picked up the knife again and bent over the tied-up man from behind so that her chin rested on his shoulder and her arms were out in front of him, showing him the knife again. His body heat was a like a furnace.

"Now you're a bad guy, but, hey, I'm a bad girl so who cares?" she said. "You're a thief, just like me. You disarm burglar alarms, just like me. You crack safes, just like me. You sneak into places that you shouldn't be in and take things that you shouldn't take, just like me. And just like me, you have clients who hire you to steal for them.

"And it doesn't happen often, but sometimes two different clients will hire two different thieves to steal the same thing. It's kind of funny. It can lead to funny situations, like this one."

For the man, things suddenly became very clear.

"Now, I'm not sure who your client is," the woman continued, "but my client is a very powerful Russian collector and he hired little ol' me to, um, acquire The Royal Crown Jewels as soon as they left his country for their big American museum tour. I had a great plan for how to do it, too. I was ready. I was gonna glide in like a bird.... BUT you beat me to it. By literal seconds. And I know it was you because I saw you. And I followed you. I've been keeping tabs on you. I've been a fly on your wall for a week. I know your name, John. I know that you're 42 and turning 43 in two months and seven days. I know that you drive a new Lexus. I know that you had a divorce ten years ago. I have your social security number. I may even have your high school report cards. I'm good. You're good, too, but I think you've gotten a little sloppy with time. You certainly won't see another thief breaking into my apartment in the middle of the night while I'm in my underwear and kicking my ass and tying me up.

"I also know that you still have the jewels. But pretty soon, I'm gonna have the jewels. Either The Crown Jewels or"--she reached down between John's legs and cupped his testicles--"these jewels."

She stood up straight and walked to where she was facing John again. She reached down and ripped the tape off of his mouth.

"Okay, where are they?" she said.

"I don't have them."

She instantly lifted her leg and buried the toe of her boot in his nuts. John's face went ruby red and he moaned out loud.

"Do you care to rephrase your answer?"

He shivered under the ropes and his eyes welled up. He moved his lips, but for several seconds nothing came out. His eyes looked out wide into nothing.

"I... I... I mean that... I don't have them... here", he finally managed to say. "They're... in the trunk of... a car... in a garage on... 4th and King."

"That's down the street. What kind of car?"

"Buick Century.... silver... 2005."

The woman sat down in the chair across from John. She raised her leg and put one foot on John's chair. She pushed the heel of her boot against his balls hard enough to make him moan.

"Okay, let's see," she said. She pulled a cellphone out from her belt and dialed up one of her contacts.

"4th and King, parking garage," she said to someone on the phone, no greeting, no pleasantries. "2005 Silver Buick Century, the trunk."

She hit a button on the phone to end the call and then waited.

She calmly looked around the apartment. "This place is really nice," she said as a mix of John's tears and sweat dripped onto the pointy black toe of the boot that she kept pressed to his testicles.

Seven minutes went by, though to John it felt like an hour. She talked more about his apartment during that time, but he didn't hear a word. Then her cellphone vibrated.

"Good," was all the woman said to the mysterious person on the other end of the exchange before she ended the call and put her phone away.

"Well, you told the truth," she said. "I have the jewels now and you get to keep your balls. My Russian will be happy. I guess I can stop this now." She lifted her foot off of John's sac and he winced in slight relief. She also retracted the switchblade and returned it to her belt pouch. She stood up and looked around the room to make certain that she didn't leave any clues as to her identity. She even scooped up the cigarette butt. All that she was going to leave behind were the ropes. She tugged at them, now sweat-soaked from John, to make sure they were still holding him tight. They were.

"Your housekeeper, the little skinny woman, she works tomorrow, right?", she said to John.

He nodded his head.

"Good. She can untie you when she gets here."

The lady thief tore off a fresh strip of tape and put it over John's mouth.

"I know that your housekeeper comes in at ten," she said. "That gives you about six hours. It sucks, I know, but it could be worse". She reached down and firmly patted John's balls, which made him wince.

She then climbed out the window where a rope hung down from the roof of the building and disappeared into the night.

JENNY AND LAUREN

"Oh my God, what a scumbag!"

Jenny was angry. She was a cute and curvy little brunette with a loud voice that the girls in the next dorm room could probably hear.

"I know. I just don't know what to do now," Lauren said.

"I know what to do. You kick Rob in the nuts. Hard."

Lauren sighed. She sat on her bed, back against the wall, her slender body folded tight in an over-sized wool sweater and her curly blonde hair fallen over her face like she wanted to hide.

"I'm serious," Jenny said. "If I found out that an ex of mine was showing his friends naked pictures of me on his phone that he took while I was asleep, that's exactly what I'd do. He'd walk funny for a week."

Lauren admired her roomate's bitchiness. She wished she had some of that herself. Lauren was the blonde angel to Jenny's dark-haired devil.

"I do want to do something to him. I just don't know what," Lauren said. She looked up at the ceiling.

"I just told you what!"

"That won't solve anything, Jenny."

"Are you kidding?! With guys, that solves everything! Have you ever kicked a guy there before?"

"No."

"Well, I have! It works. A kick to the nuts is, along with big boobs, the best way to make a man stupid. What you do is kick him, then make him delete the pictures off his phone and if he doesn't, you kick him again. He'll do it, believe me. Guys can't take that. They fall on the floor, they moan. They act like idiots. By the way, how do these new jeans look?"

"They look good," Lauren said.

Jenny spun around. "How's my butt?"

"It looks good."

"Would you say it's more of a 'cute bubble butt' or a 'FAT butt'?"

"Jenny, you're not fat."

"I've just been so busy with classes that I haven't been able to work out very much. I think it's gotten a little bigger," Jenny said as she studied her own rear view in the full length mirror on the closet door.

"You look good. You have nothing to worry about. I wish I had jeans that I looked that good in."

"Oh please, Lauren. You have a great body. Your boobs are even bigger than mine. You just need to stop dressing like a nun. We're the hottest girls in the music dorm--you just don't know it, yet."

Jenny undid the top of her jeans and slipped them off like it was a lizard skin. Down to just her snug white T-shirt and pink thong, she zipped over to her closet and dug around.

"You don't trust my opinion of your jeans?" Lauren made a sour face.

"No, I trust you. I just need to show you something."

Jenny emerged from the closet with a tiny pair of shorts in hand. She scooped up her cellphone and made a call.

"Hello, Adam," Jenny said into the phone, her voice high-pitched like she was playing a clumsy, helpless girl for the big, strong man, "this is Jenny. Are you at the dorm?... Great, could you come over to my room as soon as you can? I need a favor, sweetie... Great! I'll be here waiting for you. Thank you so much!"

Jenny put the phone down and slipped into her shorts. They were a little white cotton number that hugged her tightly and exposed every last inch of her legs with a hint of her ass cheeks in the back. You wouldn't wear them to class, but at a party where you wanted to knock the guys dead, sure.

"What on Earth are you doing?" Lauren asked.

"You'll see." Jenny checked herself out in the mirror, front and back, up and down,. "Adam loves these shorts. He could stare at my ass all day in these shorts. I can get aaaanything I want in these shorts."

The fact was though that Jenny didn't have to wiggle herself into scandalous shorts to get what she wanted from Adam. Everyone knew that he was her lapdog. When she called, he came. He helped carry her guitar to her music classes. He helped her move into her dorm room. He was her platonic lunch and movie date when she wanted one. Jenny and Adam had never had sex and probably never would, but that didn't stop him from fruitlessly trying to "friend" his way into her pants over the past year. Hopefully, he'd figure things out eventually.

That day hadn't come yet, though, as Adam demonstrated when he dutifully knocked on Jenny and Lauren's door just minutes after the call.

Jenny skipped over to the door, but before she opened it she looked Lauren directly in the eye from across the room and said "Now, you watch and learn."

At that moment, it dawned on Lauren what Jenny was about to do. "Jenny, no!"

Jenny opened the door and there was Adam, reliable as ever. He smiled, but tried to look cool. He looked Jenny up and down, with a brief pause on her abundant breasts. Adam wasn't bad looking, but he was too nerdy for Jenny. He was scrawny, short, and delicate with a little unkempt bit of beard scruff.

"Adam, so nice to see you!" Jenny said. She leaned in to give him a hug and he clearly enjoyed the sensation.

"Hi, Jenny. Hey, Lauren!" Adam said.

Lauren waved back nervously.

"Now, Adam," Jenny said, "I need you to stand right over there, by that wall."

"Sure." Adam complied like a good boy.

"Oh, no," Lauren said. She put her hands in front of her eyes.

"Lauren, I need you to watch!" Jenny said.

Lauren lowered her hands from her face. "Adam, uh...," she said.

Adam looked over to Lauren, and Jenny used that very moment to step back and swiftly kick Adam square in the nuts with all of her strength. If Adam's sac was a soccer ball, it would have flown fifty yards.

Adam's eyes bugged out and his jaw dropped like something was about to fly out of his mouth, but all that emerged was a pinched squeak. He doubled-over, bumped his ass against the wall and then slid down it until he plopped on the tile floor like a sack of laundry.

Lauren winced, but not half as much as Adam winced. He quivered all over and his eyes watered.

"Now see, Lauren, this could be Rob," Jenny said, pointing down at Adam. She put her hands on her hips and stood over him with a big smile on her face. "You know you want this."

"Jenny, you are too much," Lauren said. She rolled her eyes and sank down lower onto the bed.

"I'm just trying to help. I don't like to see you hurt, Laur."

Jenny sat on the floor next to Adam and put her arm around him. "Oh sweetie, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?" She talked to him like he was a baby.

Adam answered with a wordless moan, in a trance of testicular pain. He cupped his balls with both hands and took hard breaths that could inflate a bicycle tire.

"Oh, you poor, poor boy. Just breathe and try to relax. You'll get through it. I really apologize for this. I just needed to show Lauren how she can protect herself. Us girls need to know things like this. You forgive me, don't you, Adam?"

Jenny let one of her bare legs playfully tangle with Adam's legs and her chest loomed large below his red face. He studied Jenny's DDs for a moment and then nodded dumbly. He said something that sounded like "yes, yes", but came out as "yuh, yuh".

"Thank you, Adam. Hey, do you want to have lunch today?"

"Yuh."

"Great! We'll go when you get to feeling better. I like that beard you're growing, by the way. It's very... manly. Can I touch it?"

"Yuh."

Jenny ran her hand over Adam's whiskers and she looked over at Lauren and smirked. "See, what did I tell you, Laur? The two things that--," and then she silently mouthed the words "make men stupid".

Lauren didn't want to smile, but she did.

---------

For the month that they were together, Lauren and Rob were the most mismatched couple at the university.

She wanted an emotional connection with someone, he wanted sex. She wanted a boyfriend, he wanted a conquest. She liked his outgoing personality, he liked her large breasts. They met at a party where she knew no one and he knew everyone. Lauren was a freshman who had only one other boyfriend in her life. Rob, on the other hand, was two years older and had slept with half of Theta Phi Alpha. For him, Lauren was his easiest mark of the month. He just got done with a redhead and was in the mood for a blonde.

Eventually, she found out that he was also bedding down a part-time model/business student at the same time. She cried and screamed at him, but to no real satisfaction.

She nursed her wounds over time, had long late night talks with Jenny about it, and eventually poured her energy into her piano studies and, before she knew it, was over Rob.

Then the bomb dropped.

Lauren learned about the naked pictures, all taken while she slept in Rob's bed months ago, all lined up on his phone like pornographic souvenirs. A girl named Courtney, someone Lauren barely knew, stopped her in the lady's room at the student union and told her all about it. She'd seen the photos and recognized Lauren.

"How naked am I?" Lauren asked her.

"Completely," said Courtney. "You see everything. He was showing the pictures to his friends at a party. He's an asshole. He was even bragging that you were asleep. I was completely disgusted. I thought you should know."

Lauren's anger boiled over so much that she skipped her classes that day. She'd been upset over guys before, but this feeling was something new and much worse. Even Rob's cheating wasn't so bad next to this.

She wanted to kill him. She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to cut off his dick, let the air out his tires, and frame him for murder. She wanted the model/bartender to give him a veneral disease that made his skin melt off. She wanted his cellphone to explode and burn off half his head.

By the time she got back to the dorm and told Jenny everything, Lauren mostly just felt embarrassed. She even thought about quitting school. Jenny's presence made her feel better and, though it was mean, it was funny when she kicked Adam in the balls.

Two weeks later, Lauren cooled off even more. Lots of ice cream and clothes-shopping with Jenny did her some good. Jenny was helping Lauren become more comfortable with her body. Lauren's breasts had always been a problem for her. They were unwieldy and awkward FF-cups. When she looked at them in the mirror, they never looked proportional to her slim body. They were two big burdensome melons always jiggling and attracting stares. The stares made Lauren feel vulnerable and on display, a cut of meat under a glass case, a defenseless rabbit always about to be eaten by a fox. She often wore oversized clothes to hide her buxom shape.

Or at least she tried. It didn't always work. Men notice breasts out of seemingly primal instinct.

Jenny, on the other hand, flaunted her own chest without a care. Tight tops, low-cut dresses, cleavage popping out. Jenny showed off her assets freely, didn't even try to hide them.

One late night, the two girls talked to each other in the dark from their separate beds across the dorm room and Lauren confessed to Jenny how she hated her own breasts and how weak they made her feel. Jenny's response was so incredulous, she had to sit up.

"What?! Your boobs don't make you weak! They make the guys around you weak! Every guy who can't look you in the eyes because he keeps looking down at your boobs is weak. You have power over him. I've seen guys do the stupidest things in the world because of boobs. Never think you're weak. That's not how it works. Enjoy your your feminity! That's part of what being a woman is about."

For Lauren, the conversation was a turning point.

A few weeks later on a Friday night, Lauren, Jenny, and Adam--two bombshells and a patchily bearded nerd--were out at Ginger's, a hangout spot a few blocks from campus, famous for their import beers and baskets of complimentary shelled nuts at the bar, which one cracked open with an elegant, long-handled custom Ginger's nutcracker. Lauren wore a snug halter top with a plunging neckline and a short skirt. Every guy who walked by checked her out and she was learning how not to mind. She even smiled back at a few of them.

Jenny saw someone from one of her voice classes outside and she wanted to step out and talk to them.

"Hold my purse," she said to Adam. "If anything happens to it, I'm going to kick you in the balls."

He watched the swing of Jenny's ass in skinttight black leggings as she walked away and then he put her purse in his lap and guarded it with his hand. He even put the strap around his neck.

"Wow, you're really taking that job seriously," Lauren said.

Adam didn't say anything.

"I'm sure that Jenny was only kidding when she said that she'd kick you in balls if you didn't hold her purse."

"She got me yesterday, really hard," Adam said.

"You're kidding."

"She sent me to the grocery store to get some shampoo for her. She said I bought the wrong kind and then kneed me in your room. You weren't there."

Lauren smiled.

"It's not funny," Adam said.

Lauren tried not to laugh, but it leaped out of her anyway.

Then her cellphone beeped. It was a text message from Jenny.

Come outside now. Bring Adam

Lauren made her way through the crowded room with a good dozen guys looking her over along the way. Adam followed carrying Jenny's purse.

Outside, Lauren looked around, but didn't see Jenny. Then another text message from Jenny showed up.

Come to the alley

Lauren and Adam headed there. No sign of Jenny.

"Where the hell is she?" Lauren asked.

Jenny's voice immediately answered from about thirty feet away. "Lauren! I'm around the corner, by the steps. Come over here!"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine!"

Lauren and Adam turned the corner and saw that Jenny WAS doing fine. In fact, she had a big smile on her face.

Rob, on other hand, didn't look so good. He stood inches in front of her, towering over Jenny by at least a foot, and his tall body was stiff and it shook all over like a building about to fall. Rob held his hands tightly behind his back and sweat poured down his stunned face like candle wax. Down below, Jenny squeezed his balls with one of those long Ginger's nutcrackers.

"Oh my God," Lauren said, not sure what to think.

Adam winced in sympathy to Rob's agony, covered his own testicles, and looked away.

"So," Jenny said to Lauren, "while I was away from you two, I bumped into this dirtbag. We've been having a nice talk. Actually, I've been doing most of the talking. He's not too good at forming words right now. By the way, do you know how hard it was to text you and hold him with this nutcracker at the same time? I didn't enjoy it and neither did he."

"I-I-I'll deeleeete the pi-pi-pictures," Rob managed to say, his voice desperate and strained to a husk. He started to reach for his pants pocket and Jenny very slightly twisted the nutcracker. Rob squealed like a mouse.

"Keep your hands behind your back," Jenny said. "Move your hands like that again and I'll twist your nuts harder. You know I will, asshole. I've been looking for a singing partner to do soprano harmonies with. Maybe I'll recruit you. You understand?"

Rob made a noise that didn't sound anything like yes. It didn't even sound like "yuh". It seemed to be an affirmative though, and that was good enough for Jenny.

"You are going to delete those photos," Jenny said, "but you're not going to do it for me. You're going to do it for Lauren. By they way, quit being a rude ass. Say hi to her. Haven't you been a jerk enough?"

The sound Rob made translated roughly to "hi", though it sounded more like "huuuuh-uh".

"You got that, Lauren?" Jenny asked.

"Got it. Hi, Rob."

"Now Lauren," Jenny said, "I want you to hold the nutcracker now. We're not going to let him go. You're just going to take over from me. Hopefully, this works. The handles are nice and long. We might be able to make a smooth switch. Rob, you may experience some discomfort."

"Jenny, I don't know, I---".

"Lauren," Jenny said as she shot Lauren a stern look. It was a look that said Grow up and do this. You're not a scared little girl anymore. Rob deserves this and you deserve to be the one to do it.

Also, I'm tired of holding this nutcracker. Help a girl out, please!

"Okay," Lauren said. She inhaled deeply and stepped forward. Carefully, she and Jenny traded places at the handles of the nutcracker, never letting Rob go. His shirt and hair were matted with sweat and he whined quietly. When Lauren took over the nutcracker, Rob yelped out loud and began to raise his hands.

"Too tight?" Lauren said.

"Probably.Guys' balls are super sensitive. Squeeze hard, but not too hard. And, Rob, keep your hands behind your back!" Lauren and Rob both did as Jenny said.

Jenny dug out her car keys and called out to Adam, who stood timidly by the wall. "Adam, in my car, there's some pantyhose in a shopping bag in the trunk. I need you to go get it and bring it back here. Bring all of it." She handed him her keys. "Also, good job on the purse."

Adam took the keys and ran off to the car, which was parked just around the corner. Rob didn't dare speak out of turn again, but he looked down at Lauren and gave her the best puppy dog expression that he could manage through his pain. He pleaded silently for her to let him go.

Lauren--sweet, sensitive Lauren--looked up at him with big blue eyes and asked, "Does this really hurt, Rob?"

"Yes, yes," he said between heavy breaths. He nodded his head stupidly.

Lauren's face iced over. "Good," she said and then gave the nutcracker a slight upward twist.

Rob flinched and moaned in tune with the twist.

Jenny stood at the sidelines with a huge smile on her face. "Atta, girl!" she said.

"Okay Rob, I want two things from you." Jenny looked right up at Rob's face and spoke firm and clear. "I want you to look me in the eyes and apologize... and I want you to delete those pictures."

Lauren and Rob met eyes. His face twitched and glowed with sweat. She was solid steel. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He practically sobbed the words out. In the middle of it, his eyes drifted down to Lauren's cleavage.

"Are you sure?" Lauren twisted his balls slightly to the left.

Rob's head snapped upward and his mouth opened in an agonized "O". "Yes," he said. His voice was a squeak.

"Thank you, Rob. Now give me your phone. Actually, Jenny, could you come over here and take his phone?"

"Of course!" Jenny stepped over to Rob and looked up at him and smiled. "It looks like you screwed over the wrong girl this time, Rob."

Lauren twisted the nutcracker again and Rob squealed. "Yes! Yes! Yes, I did!"

With quivering hands, Rob did as he was told and handed his phone over to Jenny.

At that moment, Adam returned with a large paper shopping bag of tan pantyhose.

"What's this?" Lauren asked Jenny.

"I thought it might be a good idea to tie him up. That way you don't have to keep holding him. What do you think?"

"I like it."

There was a metal railing by some concrete steps a few paces away. Lauren pulled Rob over to it by his balls while he whimpered with each step. Then Jenny tied Rob to the metal bars with the pantyhose. She tied his hands behind his back and fastened his arms down with a few layers of hose stretched firm­­­ across his torso. After about a minute, she had him tied up helpless in a standing position.

Adam hung back with a sour look on his face. He never liked Rob, but he felt bad for him here.

"That should hold him," Jenny said. She tugged one last time at the pantyhose that criss-crossed his chest just to make sure it was good and tight. It was. Rob wasn't going anywhere.

"Good. I think I'll keep holding him with the nutcracker, though. I kind of like him this way."

"Yeah, Rob," Jenny said, "you're very polite when someone's squeezing your nuts." Lauren laughed, Rob made a noise like a squeaky window hinge, and Jenny went to work on his phone.

"Ah," Jenny said, "he has a file in his photo section called Pussy. Classy."

Lauren twisted the nutcracker to the right a little and Rob gasped.

"Oh my God, Lauren. There are so many girls here!"

Lauren sighed with venom.

"Rob," Jenny looked up from the phone and looked him straight in his contorted face, "you're a scumbag."

He had over one hundred photos in his "Pussy" file, all various angles and intimate close-ups of nude sleeping girls with bedsheets lifted off.

Then Jenny found Lauren.

"Let me see," Lauren said.

"Oh honey, I don't know."

"Let me see!"

Jenny gave in and showed her the phone. Jenny scrolled through the pictures while Lauren kept the squeeze on Rob's balls. Adam was tempted to wander over for a peek at the photos, but was afraid of what Jenny might do to him with her knee again, so he stayed away and kept watch.

There were twenty photos of Lauren, some of her front side, some of her back side, several of her breasts, some shot right between her legs. It was a complete tour of Lauren's naked hills and valleys as she slept in Rob's bed. The photos were artless and awkward. That was part of the insult. What was the point of a big photo of just her bare butt? Or the really ugly one of her boobs flopped over to the side while her neck looked like it was in a weird position? And Lauren didn't want to think about the two weird gynecological close-ups for a second longer than she had to.

Lauren didn't like it and she didn't get it, but her anger was less fiery than she expected it to be. She was mad, but not livid. She'd built up Rob as the most evil of evils, but with everything out in the open like this, he seemed more pathetic than anything else, just a creep with a camera. She felt bigger than him. Stronger. It was just like Jenny said. Lauren wasn't the weak one here.

A strange calm came over Lauren. And then a plan.

First things first: "Delete all that stuff," Lauren told Jenny. With the quick proficiency that young women have with cellphones, Jenny deleted Rob's entire "Pussy" file in about 2.7 seconds.

Then, Lauren released Rob from the nutcracker and she flung it onto the pavement behind her. Rob whined in slight relief, but it didn't last long. Lauren immediately kneed him in the balls. Eyes bugged, face flushed, and gripped by pain, Rob slumped down as low as he could. It wasn't far. The pantyhose bondage kept him standing upright.

Lauren stepped up to Rob and undid his belt and pants.

"Uh, Lauren, what are you doing?" Jenny asked.

"We're going to take some photos of our own," Lauren said. "What 'til you see his underwear."

Lauren pulled Rob's pants down to his ankles and revealed that he wore tiny leopard-print bikini briefs. His genitals bulged like a little sack of fruit.

"Oh. My. God!" Jenny said before she exploded into giggles.

"I was hoping you'd be wearing these, Rob," Lauren said to his slumped over face. "Either these or the zebra-print ones."

"ZEBRA PRINT!" Jenny was in hysterics. She had to sit down. Adam had to look away. He kept his distance.

Rob didn't say a word, nor did he struggle to get loose. He was still firmly zoned out from Lauren's knee. The pain was just as immobilizing as the pantyhose that tied him down. His face was red.This was going to hurt awhile.

Lauren took out her cellphone and began to snap pictures of Rob. Embarrassing full body shots of him standing tied up in his underwear with his pants around his ankles. Front views, side views, close-ups of his leopard-spotted crotch. Jenny even took a few pictures, including some posed shots of Lauren smiling and squeezing Rob's balls again with the nutcracker.

Several minutes later, the girls were finished. They'd taken more than enough photos and both agreed that some drinks were in order. They put their phones away and Jenny retrieved Rob's phone and stuffed it down the front of his underwear. He winced when it knocked against his testicles and winced again when Jenny slapped his bulge with the back of her hand. "Here's your phone back," she said with a wicked smile.

"Okay, let's go," Lauren said to Jenny. "I'm dreaming of white wine!"

"Let's do it!"

Adam unglued himself from the wall and stepped forward. "Wait," he said, "we can't just leave Rob like this."

"He'll be fine," Jenny said. "Someone will find him or he'll get loose on his own."

"We need to at least untie him."

"No, really, Adam, he'll be okay."

Adam paused and gave it some thought. He looked to both Jenny and Lauren and got no sympathy from either. Both girls wanted to leave right then. He looked back at Rob, who was coming alive a bit and meekly straining against his bondage, pants still down around his ankles.

"I'm going to go untie him," Adam said and he headed toward Rob.

Jenny sighed and picked up the nutcracker off the ground. She sprinted over to Adam, got in front of him and in one quick, graceful motion, got a firm grip on his balls. Adam's whole body went stiff and he let out a quick succession of breathy whines.

"Adam," Jenny said, staring right into his wide-open eyes, "Rob will be fine. People walk by here all the time, okay? Someone will find him, they'll untie him, and he'll be embarassed. He deserves it. Let's go. Are you gonna come with us?"

"Yuh, yuh". Adam nodded quickly.

"You're not going to try to untie Rob?"

"No-o-o, no-o-o"

Jenny smiled. "Good! So, I can let you go now, right?"

"Yuh, yuh, please, please, please!"

"Okay, I just wanted to make sure we understand each other."

"We do, we do!"

"Okay."

Jenny held Adam by the balls for a few more seconds while he whimpered some more and then she let him go. He crumpled to the ground, clutching his sac, almost crying. Jenny put the nutcraker in her purse and then she and Lauren helped Adam stand up and limp back in the moonlight to Jenny's car.

"So, how do you feel?" Jenny asked Lauren as they snapped on their seatbelts.

"Amazing. Like a whole new person, like a stronger person. Just... amazing." Lauren beamed.

Jenny looked to the back seat where Adam curled up still holding his nuts, eyes closed tightly, lost in pain. "And how do you feel, Adam?"

"Fine," he said in a quivering high-pitched voice.

The girls giggled, high-fived, and then drove off to get some good chardonnay.

Back behind Ginger's, Rob struggled until his wrists and arms hurt. Jenny tied good knots. He thrashed around so much in his bondage so that his cellphone slipped out of his leopard-print nut-huggers and cracked on the ground.

Rob had two options.

Plan A was for him to get loose on his own, pull his pants up, and then get out of there.

Plan B was to just yell for help.

The alley was deserted, but he could clearly hear people constantly enter and leave the bar and chat on the sidewalk on the other side of the building. He didn't want anyone to see him like this, but Plan B looked to be the only option he had left. The weather was getting cool and his nose was starting to itch. He had to get untied. Rob decided to give Plan A one last shot before going to Plan B when all of a sudden, he heard footsteps coming toward him and two female voices very close. One of the voices sounded familiar. There was also a faint whiff of cigarette smoke.

"... but Joe will be able to smell it on you," one of the girls, the one with the familiar voice, said.

"Not if I only have one, Erin. I'll just pop a breath mint and be fine."

"I can't believe you told him that you quit."

"I quit for a few days."

"And now here we are!"

"Yep, sneaking around alleys just so I can smoke!"

"You're bad."

"I know. Thanks for walking with me, Erin. I don't want to smoke where people can see me and I didn't want to come back here alone."

"Oh, it's fine. What are friends for? Besides, it's a nice night... Ally, there's someone there!"

Rob's suspicions were right. One of the two girls was Erin Smith, a tall brunette with a sweet face and great legs. Business major, he remembered. She was really loud in bed. He dated her for a few months last semester until she caught him cheating on her with a girl from Australia who worked in the campus library.

Erin still looked great. She'd cut her hair down to shoulder-length and it really worked for her. She was still showing off those legs, too, smooth, long and strong in little shorts. Her cigarette-smoking friend Ally was an hourglass-shaped dirty blonde who filled out her mini-dress nicely.

Even tied up in pain with an itch on his nose and his genitals practically flapping in the wind, a guy notices pretty girls.

"Wait," Erin said. "Rob? Is that you?"

"Yes. Could you help me, please?"

Erin started to laugh. "Why are you tied up in your underwear?"

"It's a long story. Could you untie me?"

"First question," Ally said to Erin, "how do you know him? Second question: Is that actually his underwear?"

"We used to date until he cheated on me," Erin said. "And yes, that's his underwear."

"Wow." Ally needed a fresh drag off her cigarette.

"Are you going to untie me? I need your help."

Erin walked closer to him and looked him over. "Pantyhose, huh? It looks like a girl did this to you. Was it the girl you cheated on me with? Did she finally figure out what an asshole you are?"

"It wasn't her."

"Was it some other girl you screwed around with?"

"Erin, please. Just help me. I can't get loose. I've been trying and trying. You can't leave me like this."

"Okay, Rob." She got right up to close to him, put her hands on his shoulders and drove her knee up into his balls with all the strength in her marvelous legs. Rob went red-faced and watery-eyed and he moaned from the pain. Ally came over and blew smoke at him.

"A knee to the nuts is all you're going to get from me, Rob," Erin said. "That's all you deserve. I'm sure you'll get untied eventually tonight, but I'm not going to be the one to do it. Anyway, Ally and I have to leave. Is it okay if I take a picture of you before we go? And maybe send it to about 30, 40, 50 of my girlfriends?"

The noise Rob made roughly tranlsated to "Ho-oh-oh".

"I'll take that as a yes," Erin said with a big smile.

Rob gave a useless little tug at his bonds. Nothing happened. They were as tight as ever, not coming loose anytime soon. At the same time, the pain in his balls spread to his stomach and became his whole world. With wide open eyes, he looked right into that world of pain. He couldn't even see the girls anymore, but he heard them. He heard their giggles, their chatter, and then he heard them walking away.

It was going to be a long night.