If the curious looks Alisha had been getting on the subway had been hard to endure, walking through the downtown business district was proving to be outright painful!

After they left the train station, Gretchen had instructed Alisha to walk a few paces behind her, presumably to insinuate that she didn't wish to be associated with such a cheaply dressed slut by the other pedestrians. Thus isolated, Alisha kept her eyes front, although she could still feel every passing pair of eyes upon her as the air wafted freely around her barley covered crotch and her heavy breasts jiggled with every tottering step. It would have been easier for her if they had been part of the early morning rush hour, because she would have at least been hidden in the crush. Right now, however, the main lunchtime crowd had yet to emerge from their offices, meaning that her totally out of place attire was subject to open scrutiny.

Over the past year, Alisha had become acquainted with this part of the city very well and was a known patron of the many coffee shops, delicatessens, dry cleaners, flower stalls, and other small businesses that operated around here. She had always reveled in the attention and compliments she had received from the local merchants, but today she just prayed that nobody would recognize her! As Gretchen crossed the road, Alisha suffered a sudden attack of stage fright and came to such an abrupt halt that a man walking behind bumped into her.

"Hey, watch what you're doing, you dumb bitch!" he yelled-but as his eyes dropped down to her wobbling breasts, his angry expression morphed into a wide grin.

"Holy shit! Isn't it a little early for you to be working, honey?"

Her cheeks burning, Alisha instinctively looked over toward Gretchen for assistance, but the slender blonde was already waiting in front of their office building. Apparently no longer in a rush to reach his own place of work, the man who had slammed into her was now openly gawping at Alisha's absurdly large chest.

"Mother of God! I have never seen a pair like that in my entire life!"

Fighting back the urge to cover her breasts, Alisha edged away, but the guy caught her arm and said, "Hey, what's your hurry? How about a phone number?"

For a second, Alisha froze. A few pedestrians had paused to see what was happening, but none of them moved to help her, and in one of her glimpses of mental lucidity, she understood why. Had she been dressed in her usual business suit-without the wig, tacky makeup, and oversize breasts-these passers-by would most certainly have perceived this encounter as sexual harassment and somebody would have stepped in to ask if she needed any help. But turned out as she was like a cheap hooker, the expressions of disdain in these onlookers' eyes clearly betrayed their first impressions. To these good folk she wasn't even worthy of their sympathy, let alone their assistance, and they probably thought they were witnessing some kind of money dispute from the previous night.

Terrified that somebody might recognize her, Alisha shook her arm free and shoved the man away from her. As he stumbled backward, he laughed, "Hey, come on! I just want to play with your great big titties for a while!"

With her cheeks on fire, Alisha fled across the road, acutely conscious of the way her bloated breasts were bouncing wildly in front of her. Ignoring the horns of the cars as she staggered across the street, she caught up with Gretchen at the entrance to the building.

"Precious, will you please try to keep up? I told you to follow me-not to flaunt yourself on the streets!" Gretchen said.

Alisha mumbled an apology, keeping her eyes downcast as she followed Gretchen up the polished granite steps. When they reached the top, Gretchen said, "So how does it feel to be back at work? Nervous?"

Glancing up, Alisha caught sight of herself in the glass door and had to overcome another sudden urge to turn tail and run. Over the past few weeks, she had been subjected to unimaginable humiliations and degradations. Her body had been deformed, her mind twisted, and she had plumbed such emotional depths that she had come to doubt that there was anything else that could happen to further diminish her self-esteem. Now she knew there absolutely was! Every terrible thing that had happened to her so far had taken place in relative isolation, either at Darius Nash's house, Jacob Johnson's secluded farm, and most recently in Gretchen's back yard. As utterly demeaning as these experiences had been, they had all nonetheless been restricted to a relatively small group of witnesses. For Alisha, this was of consequence because it meant there would always be the possibility of damage limitation if the whole world was not yet privy to what had happened to her after she was finally set free.

Today however, was a whole different ball game. Waiting for her at the top of this building was the sacred domain that she had worked so hard and so long to be admitted to. Not only had the legal profession finally accepted her, but through a combination of genuine work ethic and subtle use of her feminine charms, she had been noticed and earmarked as a rising star. For some still unexplained reason, that hard-earned attention had now been turned horribly against her, and instead of striding confidently down those polished aisles, she was about to become the object of public ridicule in front of her professional peers!

Out of nowhere, she recalled a pool party that she had attended a couple of months back at the home of a friend called Helen Parker-a pretty blonde who coincidentally bore a striking resemblance to Gretchen. There was only a small close-knit group in attendance on that sunny afternoon, but the face that had just popped into her mind belonged to a girl named Annabel, the former high society princess who had inadvertently gotten Alisha into her current predicament. Unbeknown to the rest of them, Annabel was already by then firmly in the clutches of the loathsome Darius Nash, and he had colluded with Helen that afternoon to subject the wretched girl to the worst possible humiliations in front of her so-called friends.

Alisha herself had even participated in Annabel's anguish by giving her a paddling in front of the others after Nash had revealed Annabel's betrayal to her. Alisha vividly recalled the expression of utter terror on Annabel's face as she had reluctantly approached the poolside-and now she understood exactly how the wretched girl must have felt. Surely nothing could cause any greater emotional pain than to be totally humbled in front of your own social group-a fate that Alisha knew she would be facing in just a few minutes time!

On trembling legs, she followed Gretchen through the revolving glass doors into the high-ceilinged lobby. The security guard standing beside the metal detector took one look at Alisha and immediately put up his hand.

"Uh-uh, tootsie. I don't think so!"