This Is War - Chapter 17 - Nigel!
“Nigel!” yelled Tanner. “Stop screaming. You’re acting hysterical.”
Nigel?
I looked back. Sure enough, Tanner’s weird little houseboy had taken the place of Tanner’s suitcase.
He was dressed in his full butler’s uniform, which somehow was the most normal thing I’d seen him wear.
But what wasn’t normal was that he was sitting there at all.
Because I swear he hadn’t been a minute ago. “Where the heck did you come from?”
“Hello, Mistress Ash,” he said. “Forgive me for startling you. I would have stayed in the trunk, but it was getting cramped.”
I glared at him. The trunk was exactly where his weird little ass belonged. “Forgive you? I absolutely do not forgive you. You locked me in a Starbucks bathroom and left me for dead.”
“It was for your own safety.”
“There was nothing safe about that bathroom,” I said. “You should have seen the puddle on the floor. It still haunts me…”
“Nigel, is that true?” asked Tanner.
Nigel shrugged. “How should I know if the puddle haunts her?”
“I didn’t mean the puddle. I was asking if you really locked her in a bathroom?”
“I did. So that she’d be safe from DODO.”
“Good job.”
“What?!” I screamed. “No! Don’t encourage that behavior.” I hit him with the bikini Nigel had handed me, but there was so little fabric that I didn’t even think he felt it. “Wait, do you really expect me to wear this tiny bikini?”
“Pretty sexy, right?” asked Tanner.
“I’m not running around this camp in a thong.”
“Well I figured you’d wear some jean shorts with it. Nigel, your assistance, please.”
Nigel tossed a pair of jean shorts onto my lap.
Thank God. But wait… I was supposed to be living. And acting wild. And saying yes to everything, even thongs. “Actually, I don’t need these shorts. Single Girl Rule #43: Bikinis are the only acceptable girls’ trip outfit. Er…summer camp outfit.”
Tanner gripped the wheel a little tighter.
Ha! Take that! For the first time ever, Chastity’s ridiculous made-up rules had come in handy. Fine, not the first time. They’d helped me make Tanner jealous before. Which ultimately won him over for a day. I wondered if making him jealous again would get me a 48-hour boyfriend this time.
“Aren’t you gonna change?” asked Tanner.
“Yeah. I’ll change when we get there.”
“Wow. Bold move.”
“What? Why?”
“You’ll see.” He started humming like the conversation was over. But it definitely wasn’t.
“No. Tell me! Why is it a bold move to wait until we get there to change?” I had started to sweat so much thinking of all the crazy things that might happen to me at this sex camp.
“It’s not a big deal, really. Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”
“Enjoy what?! Tell me right this instant!”
“It’s tradition to strip anyone who arrives in business clothes and then throw them in the lake.”
“What?!” I was totally freaking out. I didn’t want to be stripped naked. Or thrown in a lake. I actually wasn’t sure which was more horrifying. I’d read about these brain-eating amoebas that liked to live in lakes…
“Don’t worry,” said Tanner. “It’s all in good fun.” He seemed so relaxed. He wasn’t even gripping the wheel tightly anymore.
Which was suspicious. And it was even more suspicious that Tanner was wearing a suit. And Nigel… I turned to look back at him. “If that’s a tradition, then why is Nigel in his butler’s uniform?”
Nigel gave me a huge grin. Which made me think that he was very much looking forward to being stripped and thrown into the lake.
“Ugh, never mind. I don’t want to know.”
“I’m good at changing quickly,” said Tanner. “Hopefully you are too.”
I wasn’t. If I tried to change quickly, I’d end up putting both feet through the same leg hole and falling on my face.
Or putting the thong on backwards and ending up with the world’s worst front wedgie.
Either would be mortifying. But not that bad, really, because it would be Raven Black doing it.
Oh God… I didn’t have my wig! Which meant that I was about to have to parade around in a thong bikini as myself.
I turned back to Nigel. “Is my wig in there?”
“Let me check…” Nigel started digging in my suitcase. And then he handed me what looked like a powdered wig from the 1700s.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“Your wig, Mistress.”
“Unless we’re going to some weird colonial history camp, then that is not my wig.”
“Hmm…” said Nigel. “Are you certain?”
“My wig is black. And not curled. Or powdered.”
“Try this,” said Tanner. He pulled a silver bracelet out of his pocket and handed it to me.
“Okay, but I don’t know how that’s going to help.”
“Just try it on. You need it anyway now that you’re a novus member. Initiates just wear black, novus members wear silver. And veritas members wear gold.”
I looked at his wrist. He was just wearing a black watch. “And what are you?”
“What do you think I am?”
“I assume you’re veritas. Or is there something higher? I know you have some fancy badge that lets you order other members around, right?” He’d used it months ago at Club Onyx to make Angel and Diablo stop flirting with me.
“You should really put that bracelet on and change. We’re getting pretty close.”
Gah! I hated when he ignored my questions. But if we were close, then he was right. I needed to change. And fix my makeup. I slid the bracelet on and then opened up the mirror and…
“How…?” I gasped. Somehow, my hair was jet black.
“Pretty cool, huh?” asked Tanner. “It’s some new tech I’ve been working on for the CIA.”
“The CIA?” I slid the bracelet off and my hair changed back to red. And then I slid it back on and my hair turned black again. “Whoa.”
Tanner smiled. “Now you don’t have to worry about your wig flying off.”
“Thank God. That was one of my biggest fears. You don’t happen to have one that magically changes my clothes?”
“Magic?” asked Tanner. “Who said anything about magic? That bracelet is 100% technology. It’s filled with microchips and things.”
“It was just a figure of speech. But now I’m kind of suspicious about it actually being magic.” Seriously, why was he acting so weird about it?
Tanner laughed. “Fine, you caught me. It’s a magic hair-changing bracelet.”
I hit his arm. “Oh, right. Just like your flaming genie penis?”
Nigel gasped. “You told her!?”
I shook my head. “You two are ridiculous. I know you just said you had a flaming penis because I accidentally set Matt’s penis on fire.”
Tanner laughed.
“It’s not funny! It was one of the worst moments of my life.”
“Worse than it was for Matt?”
I didn’t want to think about that. “But he said he was okay. He is, right? I mean, he must be. He has a baby.”
“Don’t tell me you’re stalking him too?”
“I’m not stalking Matt or you or anyone else.
It’s just important to follow through with these things.
You wouldn’t understand because your dick has never been set on fire so you don’t need to be checked up on.
” What am I even saying right now? A blue sign in the distance caught my eye.
“Hey, there’s a gas station coming up! Let’s pull over so we can all change and avoid being tossed into the brain-eating-amoeba-filled lake. ”
“Great idea,” said Tanner. “I just hope the floor in the bathroom there isn’t too slippery.”
“Slippery? Oh God. Why would the floor be slippery?” I flashed back to my time in the Starbucks bathroom. And the puddle.
“I can think of a lot of reasons. Someone might have missed the toilet, or maybe changed some diapers on the floor…”
I dry heaved. “Fine. Fine! I’ll change in here. Just don’t look.”
“I would never.”
“Just like on our first date when I caught you looking?”
“If I recall correctly, I caught you looking.”
“You’re impossible. Now, don’t look.” I pushed my hair aside and started to unbutton my blouse. But my fingers paused when I felt eyes on me. Tanner was focusing on the road. Which meant… I turned around to see Nigel staring right at me. “Hey, you don’t look either.”
“Would you rather I help?” He reached toward my buttons. And therefore my boobs.
I swatted his perverted little hand away. “No! I don’t need your help. Now turn around.”
Nigel looked out the window. For literally one second. And then he turned back and stared at me. He seemed surprised that I hadn’t already changed. “Are you sure you don’t need my assistance, Mistress Ash? It seems like you’re having a bit of trouble.”
No. I turned back to Tanner. “Seriously – do you have a bracelet that can change my clothes?”
“I do,” said Tanner. “Well, kind of. It’s a ring.” He pulled a ring out of his pocket and slid it onto his finger. And right before my eyes, his clothes changed from a suit to a fitted T-shirt and some swim trunks that cut off just above his knees.
I blinked. How the hell did that just happen?! His tech was seriously impressive. I couldn’t even imagine what must have gone into designing something like that.
“Wow,” I said. “That’s amazing. Do you have one for me?”
“I do.” He tossed me a ring.
I was about to put it on, but he reached out to stop me.
“Before you use it, I should probably warn you that it’s still just a prototype. Sometimes it…glitches.”
“Glitches? What does that mean?”
“Well…it is pretty good at making your current clothes disappear. But the part that replaces them doesn’t always work.”
“Really?” Damn it! Why hadn’t it glitched when he used it on himself?
It would have been so great if he had accidentally lost all his clothes.
Not because I wanted to see him naked or anything.
Nope. Definitely not . Because I wasn’t interested in him.
I just thought it would be funny if he messed up.
“Yeah. But it only glitches like 70% of the time. So the odds are…well, I guess they’re not really in your favor.
You willing to risk it?” His eyes went to my breasts.
And I started to think that it wasn’t really a glitch at all.
That little pervert had just given me a ring that would leave me ass naked!
And I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.
“I think I’ll just change the old-fashioned way.”
He turned off onto a gravel road. “Okay, but you better hurry. You only have about 90 seconds before we arrive at the Emerald Oasis. And unfortunately for you, Elon didn’t bother to send me the model with tinted windows.”