A year ago, Monica's parents had been telling her, "It's all right hon, you'll meet the right boy sooner or later, one who'll see what wonderful girl you are." Now they were all, "Look, hon, I know it sounds harsh, but it's true: boys will say and do anything, ANYTHING, to have sex with you. Even the nice ones, so be very careful."

The reason for the change: Monica had seen three women dressed as Slave Leia belly dancing at SciFiFunCon, a science fiction and comics convention she attended with her friend Joanie. Monica had been transfixed by the dancer's grace and beauty. One of the dancers was overweight, but she still moved with such beauty and sexiness that all the guys on the floor of the convention had been overwhelmed at the sight of her and the other two.

"I could do that!" Monica thought. "I could learn it. That could be me dancing here next year."

So when Monica returned home from SciFiFunCon she of course told her parents all about the Con, when they enjoyed as they were the ones who had gotten Monica started on Cons by bringing her with them back in the day when they attended Cons regularly. Then she told her parents that she absolutely had to have belly dancing lessons because it was an incredibly beautiful and graceful thing to do, and she wanted to learn to do it.

Monica's parents agreed to pay for lessons without so much as a quibble. They were glad for the chance to do so. They had seized on the belly-dancing and supported it because, despite its rather obvious sexuality, it at least was a very good form of exercise, and Monica could clearly use some exercise, being about 40 pounds overweight and at only 5'1", it really, really showed.

Jim and Lisa Lutz would never have dared mentioned this aspect of belly dancing's appeal to their daughter, because she was very sensitive about her weight, and any mention of it might send her off on some unguessable tangent and they might wind up with a Goth daughter or a slut daughter or who knows what kind of daughter.

So they paid for the belly dancing classes and kept their mouths shut, hoping for the best for Monica because they really did like her, as well as love her. She was a bright student with a generally pleasant disposition when her hormones weren't twirling her like a propeller. They both thought she had the makings of a fine human being, someone they would be proud of one day. And like most parents who love their children, they were only too happy to give her something she wanted, when it was in their power to do so, and promised not to do her any great harm, and most especially when it might do some good.

Their wishes with regard to belly dancing were rewarded. Monica took to it like a duck to water. In addition to having an instinctive feel for how the moves should go, she developed an almost obsessive interest in belly dancing, practicing alone in her room for hours on most nights when she did not have belly dancing classes at Madame Yasmina's School of Dance.

Monica's parents would have been a little less happy about her belly dancing if they had known what went on when she practiced alone at night. They didn't know, because they were very respectful of Monica's privacy. They had learned to trust their daughter over the years.

Jim and Lisa Lutz were amazed when they went to see the graduating class of Madame Yasmina's School of Dance, and they saw their little girl transformed into a slinky, sensuous dancing girl before their very eyes. Monica's hard work and study had made her one of the school's star dancers, certainly far advanced over those others who had started just that year, as she had.

The reason for Monica's diligence lay in the instructions Madam Yasmina gave her class on their first day of training.

"I will teach you many things in this class," said Madame Yasmina, who spoke English without any accent at all but was prone to use more elaborate grammatical constructs than most American English speakers. She never did say where she was from.) "You will learn hip drops, shoulder rolls, figure eights, all the basics of the dance." (Madame Yasmina never referred to it as belly dancing or ethnic dance or tribal dance, she referred to it only as "the dance" as if it were the only dance in the world, or at least, the only one that mattered.) "You must practice these moves every night if you hope to become skilled practitioners of the dance. You may imagine that you have talent and I have no doubt that some of you do, but the simple fact is that an untalented girl who practices the dance will easily outdo a talented girl who does not practice. You should look upon these lessons as preparation for your practice, not practice itself, though in teaching you to practice and to dance we will have to very much the same things you will be doing in your practice."

"But there is one thing I wish you to do in your practices that I will not be teaching you," Yasmina continued. "At the end of each practice, put on your favorite music, dress as you like, and dance to it in the way you like to dance. Try to incorporate some moves from THE dance into YOUR dance, but only if they feel right and they please you. You must reward yourself for your practice if you are to continue it, otherwise it becomes just a burden instead of a means of self-expression."

Monica was not overly impressed by this advice at first, because it sounded as if Madame Yasmina were pandering to students who had no self-discipline with her call to end each practice with a session of fun dancing.

Monica had plenty of self-discipline and she applied herself to the crunches, floor exercise, shoulder rolls, belly rolls, hip drops and figure eights with the same determination she had used to get through the endless drudgery of washing out silkscreens that silkscreen printing involved. But she also did the fun dancing at the end of her practice sessions, because her instructor had told her to, and she had learned that instructors often knew what they were doing.

When she did the fun dancing, Monica imagined that she was at SciFiFunCon, dancing for the boys there. From the very beginning, the boys in Monica's imagination were VERY appreciative of her dancing skills. They cheered, they whistled, they applauded, their eyes bugged out at Monica's beauty and inventiveness as a dancer.

As the fun dancing continued, the boys showed a distinct preference for the more raunchy moves in bellydancing. The raunchier Monica danced, the better the boys liked it, though of course they were appreciative of her every move.

This drift into raunchiness was not the product of any conscious decision on Monica's part. Monica was simply responding to what felt good when she danced, and the raunchy dancing for a cheering throng of boys, however imaginary they might be, was what felt good to her.

After a week or so of practice, Monica discovered that the boys liked her dancing more the fewer clothes she wore. She always did her stretches and crunches in shorts and T-shirt because it was comfortable clothing to wear while she did that. Then she'd change into her belly dance outfit and do her practices -- hip drops, figure eights, shoulder rolls -- all the basic movies of belly dancing. She'd follow that up with some practice at various dance moves.

She fun danced to bouncy J-pop songs, a favorite of hers, in her belly dance costume, but after awhile she'd start to get sweaty because she really put a lot of energy into her fun dancing, and she'd take off the pantaloons and the coin bra over her vest that she wore.

The boys really liked that. So after a couple of weeks of practice, Monica followed that by removing her vest. Very popular move, but it was as nothing to when she removed her bra itself the next day.

A day or two later, her panties went the way of her bra, and Monica was dancing stark naked for her imaginary crowd. The boys could not have been more appreciative than they were of her naked dancing ... because if there was a way they could have been more appreciative, Monica would have imagined it, and have them be that appreciative. Awe and reverence mixed in with raw lust would probably be the best way to describe their feelings at the sight of Monica dancing so nakedly and so skillfully. Every one of them would have died for her, or at least killed one of the others for her.

The fun dancing was a huge ego booster for Monica, and fun besides, and so she went at it for increasingly long periods as she practiced. She remained diligent about practicing her regular moves of course, and much of the fun dancing consisted of her regular moves mixed in with some improvisational raunch, so Monica made great progress in her lessons.

There was an additional effect the fun dancing had on Monica. It was making her horny. Obviously, there was a reason she was stripping off her clothes every night when she danced, and that was that the fun dancing was profoundly erotic to her. Especially, dancing in front of those very appreciative imaginary guys made her horny.

At first, Monica did not recognize this for what it was. When she'd had her first period when she was 14, much later than some of her classmates, she felt it was simply a pain in the ass. No amount of "joyous flower of womanhood" could make Monica believe that bleeding from the crotch and having cramps every month was a good thing. Monica didn't seem to be experiencing as much pain from her cramps as some other girls did, but it annoyed her to have them at all, so she tended to get cross when she was having them.

Monica's interest in boys was heightened in between periods, but not like some of her classmates, who seemed to think that having a period meant they had to obsess about boys. Monica thought it might be nice to have a boy who wanted to kiss her and whom she wanted to kiss, but hardly worth the trouble of trying to find a decent one among all the dingbats, scumbags and losers that filled her school, and get him to behave romantically or at least in a way that wouldn't gross her out.

Monica had had a few self-induced orgasms, because of course she had to try her vagina out once it came online as a sex organ. They'd felt pretty good, but Monica didn't see what all the shouting was about. She had other interests, so she pursued them. Possibly if some boy had showed great romantic interest in her she would have responded, but none did.

Monica wasn't concerned by her lack of a romantic life, she figured that when it was time for her to find a boy it would be like any of her interests: she'd study them and get good at them and marry a nice one like her mother had, and that would be that.

So the horniness she was experiencing as a result of her dancing sneaked up on her. She had trouble going to sleep the first couple of nights after she danced naked and she couldn't figure out why.

After a few nights of dancing naked, the inevitable happened. All the images of boys lusting for her filled her head and her fingers stole down to her pussy which was incredibly receptive and sensitive and in just a few moments she was having by far the most powerful orgasm she had ever experienced in her life, an orgasm that drew moans out of pleasure out of her without her even being aware of it, an orgasm that had her body arching and writhing with its power.

After the orgasm, Monica lay very still in bed, stunned. So THAT was what the shouting was all about! She couldn't BELIEVE how intense that had been! Or the immense feeling of relief and satiation she now felt. She felt good all over, literally, from her toes to the top of her head. She just laid there, absolutely still, enjoying the total satiation she was feeling. After awhile, she noticed she was drooling.

That was incredible, she thought. I've gotta do that again. I wonder if I could have been doing that all along? Damn!

Then she rolled over on her side, wiped her chin, and fell int a deep, very relaxed sleep.

Thereafter, every fun dance concluded with what Monica thought of as the Big Bang finish. Not every orgasm was as intense as that first one, but they were ALL very intense.

Of course, it was the dancing that did it, Monica knew. That much was obvious. The eroticism of Monica's fun dancing was cranking up her hormones tremendously, leading to a tremendous need for release at the end of the dance. Monica shuddered to think what might have happened if she had not discovered this aspect of her dancing sooner. She might have built up such a huge charge of lust that she might have just jumped on some cute boy and ravished him, without being able to control herself.

This thought made her horny, too. Those hormones were clearly hard at work within Monica's mind.

Monica didn't like one aspect of her new nightly routine, which started with crunches and ended with orgasms. She wished she could somehow incorporate the orgasms into her dance. She tried incorporating various objects that could give her orgasms into her dance, but mostly they didn't work, they were ... just wrong.

The closest she came to success was the long silk scarves that she used in some of her dance moves. They were fastened at the wrists, hips and sometimes ankles to amplify her movements and add a certain flow to the dance.

The problem was, the silk was very smooth, and getting enough pressure against her pink parts to bring forth orgasmic feelings was quite painful.

The solution came when, out of the blue, Monica started thinking about the way sailors used to measure the ship's speed in the old days. They would tie knots at regular intervals in a rope and lower the rope into the water. The number of knots that went past an object in the water over a given span of time was the ship's speed -- in knots.

Monica thought about the rope sliding through the swift, slippery water, with the knots throwing up a larger wake in the surface, and she flashed on the idea of knots in a silk scarf. And some smooth pink flesh instead of smooth blue water.

Monica put that idea to the test that very night, and it was an immediate success. With the knots in place, she didn't have to use so much pressure and speed to get the sensations she was looking for, in fact, too much pressure and speed was counterproductive. It was a matter of getting the pressure and speed just right. She had to do some fine-tuning with the knots in the scarves -- how large? What intervals worked best? -- but all of them worked to some extent and some of them worked very well indeed.

Best of all, they incorporated into her dance wonderfully. At the appropriate moment, generally toward the end of her fun dancing, Monica would snatch up a knotted scarf and slide it between her legs and start doing some of those vulgar hip thrusts Madame Yasmina had warned her about. And if she timed it right -- and Monica's timing was getting very good as she practiced, the knotted silk scarf was not an interruption to the dance, but an addition to it. She was still able to do figure eights and so forth, it's just that her hands were now guiding a knotted silk scarf between her legs to make all the hip waggling extremely pleasurable for Monica.

Monica's dancing became more extreme at that point, her hips really rolling and grinding and working the silk scarf for all it was worth, her vagina almost clutching it, her legs far apart and braced well as she would often lean far back as she worked the scarf.

Eventually the knotty silk scarf would take her to orgasm and her knees would buckle and she would drop dramatically to the ground, lying on her back, her legs spread wide, her hands still sliding the silk scarf through her legs while she dramatically writhed, although at this point she often wasn't playing to an imaginary crowd but just moving with the feeling.

Sometimes this lasted a long time, which Monica eventually figured out was multiple orgasms. Often she would fall asleep briefly while lying on the floor, other times she would get up and go about the business of untying the knots in the silk scarf and taking it to the bathroom to wash in secret because one whiff of its now-wrinkly surface would surely reveal to Mom what Monica was doing with the scarves, and she didn't want Mom or anyone to know her little secret.

Unfortunately for Monica, her body was doing its best to spill the beans about her nightly revels, although she didn't know it. Those rhythmic, rolling, grinding hip thrusts she did while using the knotted silk scarf incorporated themselves into her dance and more. They were very much in keeping with the spirit of belly dancing as Monica understood it, and improved her dancing greatly. They also incorporated themselves into Monica's very WALK. Even when she wasn't doing "vulgar" hip thrusts, there was a new, gliding sway to her hips and butt that wasn't there before. It was not the exaggerated sway of a streetwalker in the movies, but a much more subtle thing, yet it was enough to make guys give her a second look as she walked down the hallways at school, though Monica hadn't noticed that yet.

To someone like Madame Yasmina, an expert in the way the human body moved, it was as obvious as a fire alarm. Sometimes during practice Monica would catch Madame Yasmina looking at her with the most knowing expression. Of course Madame Yasmina looked knowing all the time, but now that Monica had something she didn't want known, it was a much more daunting experience to see those older, wiser eyes resting upon her.

And while Monica's conscious mind wanted to keep her activities with knotted scarves a secret, another part of her mind wondered what was so bad about it, and would have liked to give a performance for one or more boys. Real boys. That part of her mind was completely OK with Monica's sexy hip wiggling.

There was another unintended side effect of the dancing that had an even more profound effect on Monica. In practicing and dancing and well, masturbating for two or three hours a night, Monica was burning up a couple of thousand more calories a day than she had ever done before. And her eating habits had not changed to any great extent. She generally had a snack before she started her dancing -- a candy bar or some cookies -- but that was about it.

The net result was that as she danced, she began losing weight. In three months, she had burned off twenty pounds, in six months she had burned off forty pounds, vastly improving her appearance.

And it wasn't just the weight loss that improved her appearance. Hormones had been at work on her body as she danced, rounding her hips out and filling out her breasts and generally making her much sexier than she had been. Also, the outline of her face changed, becoming sharper and more, well, beautiful. Monica's features had always been attractive, but well cloaked in baby fat and plain old fat, most of which she burned off as she danced.

And of course, her dancing had given her a certain physical grace and that certain sexual glide to her hips and ass.

All these factors combined made Monica much more sexually attractive than she had been when she first began belly dancing. It was a gradual process of course ... first becoming really noticeable in three months, then gradually becoming more pronounced until at six months Monica was, to use the language of the boys around her, "incredibly hot."

And the thing is, Monica had never ANTICIPATED losing weight or becoming beautiful as a result of belly dancing. She HAD anticipated learning to move beautifully, like the dancers she'd seen at SciFiFunCon, but the image that was dancing in her had always been the body she had had over the last couple of years. Like the slightly overweight dancer she'd seen at SciFiFunCon. The notion that in learning to dance her body itself might change had completely escaped her.

This was not due to any lack of intelligence on Monica's part. She had just absorbed the meme from the people around her that dramatic weight loss was a chimera, a near impossibility -- you basically were stuck with the body you had, and nothing worked to change that.

Oh, sure there were diets and exercise routines advertised on TV all the time, but they smelled like scams. They were undoubtedly bullshit, like most everything else on TV.

There were also dieticians and such who extolled the virtues of diet and exercise as a solution to the weight problem, but these were generally the same class of losers as the people who were charged with extolling the virtues of sexual abstinence to teens, and hence had zero credibility.

There were people in Monica's school who had experienced dramatic weight loss, but it was generally asumed that these were people with superhuman wills or mental issues and hence not a reasonable standard for what a normal person might do.

No, dramatic weight loss was impossible, except that Monica had done it, and done it more or less accidentally. She was AWARE that she had lost much weight, and that she was very attractive to boys, because her friends told her so and boys who had formerly ignored her or worse were now treating her very nicely and asking her out on dates.

The sight of their daughter dancing so powerfully and so provocatively and looking so beautiful at Madame Yasmina's end-of-class dance really brought home the changes she had been through to Monica's parents.

Late that night, as they were preparing for bed, Jim asked Lisa, "Did you see the way Monica was moving up on that stage tonight?"

"Yes, I did," Lisa said, knowing exactly what Jim meant by "the way she moved." It was hard for them as parents to state the obvious, which was that Monica's butt moved like it was mounted on ball bearings, with a suggestive wiggle and sway that reeked of sex, whenever she danced.

"It was beautiful, so beautiful, and yet so ... sexual," Jim said. "Do you suppose she's got a boyfriend?"

"I am sure she doesn't Jim," said Lisa. "If she had a boyfriend, she would have told us -- it's not like it's a guilty secret. Even if she had a secret boyfriend, it's generally easy to tell -- boyfriends take time, and they leave spoor -- lots of phone calls, lots of mooning around over him, that kind of thing. I haven't seen anything like that from Monica."

"But how could she move ... like that ... if she hadn't ever ... didn't ... you know," said Jim, unwilling and unable to articulate the thought that his daughter must be having sex to move her butt in ways that spoke volumes about having sex.

"I imagine that Monica has had a lot of orgasms," said Lisa, "just not with guys yet. She probably has orgasms when she's practicing her dancing alone in her room at night. That's probably what gives her dancing all that sensuality that's bothering you."

"I guess it does bother me," said Jim. "I know she's growing up and becoming her own person, but I worry about her. I wouldn't want her to turn out like Nancy Holcombe."

Lisa nodded understandingly. Nancy Holcombe was a neighbor's child, a very nice girl who got very good grades and was the apple of her parents' eyes until she turned 16, at which point she had become seriously interested in -- a better term would be "obsessed with" -- boys. She began devoting all her time and energy to issues like clothing and makeup, grew a huge pair of breasts and a nice ass, and quickly amassed a fortune in boyfriends. Her grades went from straight As to a spotty collection of Bs, Cs and sometimes even Fs, and her interest in listening to her parents went straight to the vanishing point.

The Holcombes, who were deeply religious and socially conservative, did not take this change in their daughter well. There were strong edicts, prayerful entreaties, confrontations, harsh words, the usual panoply of weapons wielded by the clueless when confronting budding sexuality.

As a result, at 18, Nancy had moved out of the house and taken a job stripping at a local club. She also gave lap dances, very good ones by all accounts.

Also as a result, Nancy became the Object Lesson Child, a metaphor for all the bad effects of sexuality on a teen among parents in the area, because not only had the effects of sexual awakening been direct and powerful in Nancy's case, but other parents could comfort themselves in thinking, "but we are not the Holcombes" meaning they would handle things better than the Holcombes had because they didn't have enormous sticks up their asses with regard to sexuality like the very religious, very conservative Holcombes.

(Nancy had made a lot of money stripping (see "good lap dances" above) and she used some of it to take CPA courses and qualify as a CPA, for her brains had not disappeared when she got interested in boys, they had merely taken a backseat to her genitals, and after she had gorged herself on manflesh enough to let herself feel sated, her brains reasserted themselves. She used her CPA skills to take care of her money, then to help her stripper friends take care of their money, and as a result some of them were actually able to hang onto considerable amounts of it. They got rich, and Nancy got very rich. This part of Nancy's Object Lesson conveniently eluded the memories of the Holcombes' adult friends and acquaintances.)

"I don't think you have to worry too much about Monica's dancing," said Lisa. "In fact, I think you should probably be glad of it. Here's the thing: whether we like it or not, it's obvious that Monica has had a very strong hit of sex hormones lately, probably part of her normal development. Perhaps stronger than either of us ever experienced. She has coped with it by becoming obsessed with belly dancing. It gives her a place to put all that sexual energy without necessarily getting all that interested in boys and sex. It's a defense mechanism, Jim. She's protecting herself. That's a good thing. Her grades haven't suffered for it at all, and that's a very good thing."

"I see your point," said Jim. "The belly dancing may be sexy, but it is not actual sex."

"You've got it," said Lisa. "But there is a problem. She's lost a lot of weight from all that dancing, and her body has gotten more curvy from the sex hormones, especially her breasts. You saw what she looked like up there. So the boys at school should be all over her. And not just the nice boys she's been hanging out with at the gaming club and the science fiction and fantasy society. She's pretty enough to be attractive to the athletes and the rich kids who only want to know her for one reason. They should be all over her, and using every bit of guile and skill they have, and some of them are probably pretty good, for teenage boys, which isn't saying much, but then, she's a teenage girl."

"So?" asked Jim.

"So why doesn't she have a boyfriend?" said Lisa. "I've warned her about boys, I gave her some pepper spray and a loud whistle just in case some boy tries the worst, but it's really surprising that one of them hasn't even managed to date her, that we know of."

Jim nodded. As usual, Lisa was far ahead of him on these things.

"I think I'll have a talk with Monica about that," said Lisa thoughtfully. "It's probably something I should know."

"Think she'll just tell you?" asked Jim.

"Oh, she's my daughter, and she's still a teenager," observed Lisa. "Between what she says and what she doesn't say, I'll be able to figure out what she's thinking, whether she wants me to or not."

* * *

So after dinner the next night, Lisa wandered up to Monica's room and knocked on her door. "Come on in!" cried Monica.

Lisa found Monica sitting at her desk, doing some math homework.

"I hate to interrupt your homework, Monica, should I come back later?" Lisa asked.

"Nah, no problem, mom," said Monica. "There really isn't a lot of homework for me tonight. I could do it all in homeroom tomorrow morning if I had to. Just thought I'd get it taken care of."

"All right," said Lisa. "You know, last night when you were dancing your father were struck by how, well, beautiful you looked. We've always known you were pretty, but last night you were way beyond pretty. You were beautiful."

"Well, thanks mom," said Monica, who was clearly wondering where this was headed.

"Have any of the boys at school noticed how beautiful you've become since you took up belly dancing?" asked Lisa.

"Oh, god yes," Monica said. "A lot of them have noticed. Some of them have been total pains in the ass about it. I believe the general feeling among my classmates is that I have moved from being a three to a nine, on that one to ten scale boys have."

"So have they been asking you out or what?" asked Lisa.

"Some of them have," said Monica, "but so far it's been mostly assholes. You know, the guys who treated me like a piece of furniture last year, if they even knew I existed, who're now all over me. Or would be if I let them."

"Well, you know, you can't hold a grudge against them," said Lisa. "It's no good holding grudges against people."

"It's not that," said Monica, as if her mother had missed the most obvious point in the world. "It's that they were assholes before and they haven't changed. They still treat my friends from the old days like furniture, and other women who are a little overweight like furniture. They only like me because I'm pretty. If they had changed, I'd be interested in them, but the only person who's changed is me, and I am not dating any assholes if it means I grow old and die a virgin."

"I'm completely with you on that," said Lisa. "I've never been one for kissing frogs and hoping they turn into princes -- all you get with that is, you spend a lot of time hanging out with frogs. But what about your friends from the science fiction and fantasy club, or the cons you go to or the manga club?"

"I would be happy to go out with some of those guys," said Monica, "if any of them had the nerve to ask me out. Which they don't."

"C'mon, this isn't the twentieth century," said Lisa. "You can ask a boy out if you like."

"It has occurred to me that I can invite nice boys out," Monica said. "But you know, now that I'm in a position to invite a boy out and be pretty sure that he'd be pleased, I've looked around, and a surprising number of the boys I've been hanging out with aren't dating material. I mean, I could ask them out, but all they'd do is talk about whatever it is that they're obsessing about currently, and that gets old after awhile, especially if you don't share their interest. I mean, when you're in a club meeting or hanging out with a bunch of them, it's all right because no one of them can shut the others all up, so you hear about a lot of different things. I just don't know if I'm willing to listen to Frank Johnson go on and on about what a bad idea the Crisis on Infinite Earths was, or Josh Ballinger raving about how Starship Troopers is better than any Star Wars or Star Trek movie, which is SO not true in both cases, but he can go on about it for hours, and I don't think I could stand an entire night of listening to them rave even if it means I get kissed at the end of it. But I might, I might."

"I can see you're conflicted there," said Lisa. "Of course, asking a guy out can be hard, even when you like him and you're sure he likes you, I imagine."

"Well, yeah," said Monica. She didn't want to admit it, but her real problem was, she didn't have the nerve to ask a guy out. "I mean, what if I asked one of the scifi guys I like out, and he says "No"? I would never live it down."

"Well, you know, your father asked me out," said Lisa, "but you know how oblivious he can be. To tell the truth, it wasn't his idea at all to ask me out -- it was mine -- but I really had to work to get him thinking he should."

"I can believe that," said Monica dryly. Jim was a computer programmer, and he had the legendary obliviousness of programmers.

"Yes, I was, by my grandmother's standards, shamefully forward in pursuing Jim," said Lisa. "But then, I understand that almost everything women did in her day was shameful in some way. Which kinda explains my mother."

(Lisa didn't go into how it explained her mother. Monica's grandmother had always been a feminist, though not a "movement" feminist in the sense that she ever joined any groups or anything. She felt that just not taking shit from men on a personal level was enough. When Monica's grandfather died, she joined a sex club for singles out West and did, well, a hell of a lot of things with a hell of a lot of guys. And gals. They kept it secret from Monica, but Lisa knew. And Monica knew something funny was going on with her grandmother with all her different senior boyfriends, and on occasion, girlfriends, but she didn't know what, and she didn't want to know what. It was one of those intergenerational "don't ask and hope to hell they never tell" things.)

"Oh, yeah, I know just what you're talking about, mom," Monica said with a grin. "That crazy older generation, they've got all sorts of strange ideas and they don't understand anything."

"Oh, we understand more than you know," said Lisa. "OK, here's what you have to do. You know all about these guys, right? You've hung out with them for years. You know what their hobbies are. Fine. Figure out something they really want to do or to get and then set it up so you and the guy you're interested in can go somewhere and do it or obtain it together. It won't exactly be a date, but if you've got a boy alone with you in your room, or his room, then all you have to do is get physically very close to him. Touch him a lot. Give him plenty of chances to touch you. I have to tell you the truth -- I had to actually rub up against your father to give him the idea that I was more interesting than whatever the hell he was obsessing over at the time. I think it was his new Commodore 64 C compiler."

"Mom!" Monica protested. She was an unusually even-tempered kid, but like most teens she would brook no mention of the thought that her parents had, or had ever had, sex lives.

"OK, but I think you get the idea," said Lisa. "Don't think date. Just think about getting a boy alone in your room, or getting into a boy's room, whatever the reason."

"I thought moms were generally supposed to warn their daughters not to do that sort of thing," said Monica.

"Sure, generally," said Monica. "But we both know the kind of men we like are special cases. They have to kind of be ... led to it. They want it just as bad as other men once they find it, but it does take some effort on your point to help them find it. It sure can pay off, though."

"Oh, yeah?" asked Monica. "How?"

"Well, in my case, I have a very nice daughter to love," said Lisa. "Husband too, for that matter."

"I can't argue with that," said Monica.

* * *

"How'd your talk with Monica go?" Jim asked as they went to bed that night.

"Very well," said Lisa. "I'm sure she still has her head on straight when it comes to boys. In fact, I ended up telling her how to seduce boys."

"Oh," said Jim. "I'm very confused. Should I be glad?"

"Yes, you should be glad," said Lisa. "As for the confusion, sorry, but this is the sort of thing that should stay between me and Monica. Take my word for it, it went well."

"All right," said Jim. He trusted Lisa's instincts where Monica and, well, most things were concerned.

* * *

Monica gave her mom's words a lot of thought over the next few days. In her opinion, most of the guys she was friends with wouldn't get the idea even if she took off all her clothes, hiked her butt into the air, and spread her pink bits open for them with her hands while calling "Come and get it!"

Not that she would ever express the idea that directly to her mom, but she'd told her female friends that, and they'd agreed. And since her female friends were also attracted to the same nerdy guys she was, it was a rueful sort of agreement. However, her friend Joanie knew something Monica didn't.

Shortly after Madame Yasmina's dance recital, Monica and Joanie were sitting around in Joanie's room, gossiping and working on Joanie's Princess Sampiro costume for SciFiFunCon. This was in May, SciFiFunCon was three or four months away, but Joanie was one of those people whose lives revolved around cons. Hence, her planning for her next costume for a particular con generally started right after the con ended. Four months was hardly the earliest point at which she'd begun constructing a costume for a con. Walking around the con in a really cool costume and getting all sorts of attention was the most fun Joanie had during the year and not coincidentally, the occasion on which she got the most attention from boys.

"I think the way you've changed over the last year has given you, like, a super power over boys," said Joanie. "Like, they may not want to kiss you, but if you want them to, then they have to anyway, because they can't resist you."

"It hasn't worked out that way," said Monica. "It's more like they're afraid of me."

"Well, of COURSE they're afraid of you," said Joanie. "You have this beauty super power thing going, and they know it. Maybe not consciously, but unconsciously."

"You mean, I appear in their dreams and tell them to have sex with me?" Monica asked, grinning.

"You wish it was just in their dreams," said Joanie.

"What do you mean by that?" Monica asked.

"C'mon, you HAVE to be making guest appearances in a lot of their sex fantasies," said Joanie. "You're the only beautiful girl most of them know, that they're not related to."

"Eeeew," said Monica. "I hadn't thought of that."

"It's OK," said Joanie, "they're guys. Guys are like that. I'm sure you figured in some of their fantasies before, I mean, you weren't ever bad looking." (Joanie had three brothers, and considered herself an expert on boys as a result, and compared to only-child Monica, she probably was.)

"You probably get some roles in their fantasies, too," said Monica.

"I'm sure," Joanie said calmly. "The thing you have to understand about boys is, it doesn't mean all that much that they have sex fantasies about you. They would have sex fantasies about skunks and porcupines, if that was all there was to have sex fantasies about."

"I feel so flattered," said Monica.

"Exactly," said Joanie. "Guys having sex fantasies about you isn't anything to feel flattered about or ashamed of, either. It's just guys being guys."

"Makes you wonder about our guys," Monica said. "I mean, some of the guys in school have been really going after me in the last few months. They stare at me like they're starving and I'm a nice, juicy steak. They've groped me in the halls a couple of times."

"Who?" Joanie asked indignantly.

"Oh, I dunno, you're going to class in a crowd and you feel a hand on your butt, you look back and see a bunch of guys, and there's no way to tell which one did it."

"That's gross," Joanie said, meaning the behavior of the boys.

"Yeah," Monica agreed. "Guys can be such total jerks. But I still like some of them."

"Our guys are all right," Joanie said. "I mean, they're capable of being jerks at times, but they're not total assholes. The thing is, they're smart. They know that once they get involved with kissing and love and girls and all, games and comics won't be the big thing in their lives any more. And they're afraid of that. Whereas the average and below average guys only know they're horny and girls are hot so they want to fuck us, and they don't know a better way to deal than to be assholes about it until they get some. You kind of have to lead our guys to it, but they get the idea once you have them there."

"Well, I'm kinda more like the horny dumb guys," said Monica. "I'm not looking to displace comics and gaming in a guy's life, I just want to get in on all this kissing and loving and sex and stuff that I keep hearing we teens are doing too much of. Trouble is, I just can't stand guys who are assholes, and the really horny guys you figure would just do you and move on are almost always assholes."

"OK, ok," said Joanie, "I'm going to tell you something now, but it's a really heavy thing, and you have to swear swear SWEAR you will never tell it to ANYONE -- not your friends, not your parents, not ANYBODY. Will you swear to that, honestly?"

"Well, I would swear if you want me to, I guess," said Monica, "but are you sure you want to tell me?"

"I think so," said Joanie, "because it's something I think you should know. But you have to swear. You could completely ruin my life if anyone ever found out about it, so it's really, really important that you never tell. This isn't one of those little secrets that you can tell and it doesn't matter much. This is a big secret. If you tell, at the very least, we could never be friends again. At the worst, we might never see one another again, because I wouldn't be around any more."

"Fine," said Monica, who was beginning to sound intrigued by Joanie's big secret. She had always assumed that Joanie was one of those people who would never have any secrets worth having because they were so nice. If this was half the secret Joanie thought it was, it was going to be something tremendously interesting. "I swear I will never tell anyone whatever it is you are planning to tell me."

"You swear to god," said Joanie.

"I swear to god," agreed Monica. "Look, Joanie, you've known me since middle school, do I have a reputation as someone who tells?"

"No," Joanie responded, "which is the only reason I'm willing to tell you at all. If you had a rep like Tonya Williams, the subject would never even have come up."

"Fine, then," said Monica. "I won't tell. Now, tell me."

"All right," Joanie said, looking slightly flushed and pleased and furtive all at once. She had been dying to tell this secret for years. "I've been having sex with boys since I was 16. I'm not even CLOSE to being a virgin."

"Nooooooo!" cried Monica. With some of the girls at school, such an expression of surprise would have taken a certain amount of acting talent. But with Joanie it was totally natural. She was absolutely the last person you would think had had sex who wasn't hideously deformed or anything. She was way too nice.

"Yes," said Joanie, grinning from ear to ear. "I've been doing it for years, and no one knows a thing about it!"

"Who with?" asked Monica. "Is it Richard?"

"Noooo," said Joanie. "It's no one that you or anyone else knows about."

"Well, then, what's the story?" asked Monica. "It's not a close family member or guys at truckstops or anything gross like that, is it?"

"NO!" cried Joanie. "I'd never do anything like that! It's not gross at all! Though, in a sense, you could say that Joanie Chen has never had sex at all."

"Yeah, that's what I thought," said Monica, disappointed. "You've been pulling my leg, haven't you?"

"No," said Joanie. "It's real. I've been doing it. I mean, I've been sucking cock for two years and getting fucked for a year. Been on birth control pills since then, too."

"All right, so Joanie Chen has never had sex, but YOU have," said Monica. "You using an alias, or what?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm doing," said Joanie. "I do it at cons. In costume."

"YOU'RE a hardcore cosplayer?" Monica cried in surprise.

"That's right," said Joanie, grinning.

Monica didn't know what to say. She just stared at Joanie, open-mouthed. Maybe her eyes were bugged out, maybe not. Monica didn't know.

"So, how did you get into ... serious cosplay?" Monica asked.

"I like that," Joanie said, laughing. "Serious cosplay. Nice term. Well, how it happened was, when I was 15 I was doing the cosplay. And you know, my face looked kinda old at 15 ... not old old, you know, just like I'm about 20. So, I went to the convention dressed as Princess Parsippany. You know the costume, fabric from the neck up, kinda tight at the waist but billows at the hips and breasts, so you look sexy even if you don't have all that great a figure."

"I remember, I think," said Monica, "didn't she carry a spear-like thingie, looked kinda like one of those old-time can openers on one end and a broccoli spear on the other?"

"Right," said Joanie. "Well, I went to NewOrlyCon that year and the first day I was there, in the evening, people kept coming up to me in the hall and talking to me about this one episode of Princess Parsippany, where she falls in love with the Davion Knight."

"The one they had to cut some scenes out of to show in the US?" Monica asked.

"Yeah, that one," said Joanie. "So about half a dozen guys and one girl come up to me that night and asks me what I thought about that episode. So, I tell them I saw both versions of the episode, and I didn't think it was very good compared to most others, with or without the nudity and sex. And they'd all look kind of disappointed and leave. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew something was going on."

"Yeah, because that wasn't a very good episode," said Monica helpfully.

"So, I asked an older cosplayer, and she told me that all those guys were hitting on me for cosplay sex," said Joanie. "And I hadn't even known it! Seems that cosplayers have this whole code thing going where they make references to episodes that had sexual themes, or things that could be interpreted as sexual, to indicate an interest in hooking up. If the other person responds positively, you can assume they're interested, and go on from there feeling safe. If they don't, they're either not interested in hooking up, or not up on the code, in which case you just move on. So it's safe, you see. Nobody gets rejected, and nobody has to do any rejecting, because you can both say you were just talking about an episode of a particular cartoon or TV series or something."

"So what would you have said in response if you'd wanted to hook up with the guy?" asked Monica.

"Depends on how the guy or gal is dressed," answered Joanie. "Say a cute guy dressed as Megaman asks me about the episode. I'd say something like, "Yeah, I loved that episode, but I always wished, instead of the Davion Knight, Princess Parsippany had got together with Megaman. We're still talking about an episode of Princess Parsippany, see. If the guy then says, "Well, you're Princess Parsippany, I'm Megaman, maybe we can go to my room and do some role playing and see how it would work." At this point, the guy is openly making a pass, but because I've already indicated I'm interested, it's a really safe pass to make. See?"

"That is clever," Monica said.

"Of course, at 15, I wasn't all that interested in going all the way with a guy," said Joanie. "So I told my friend I was up for some hugging and kissing, but not a lot more, and she said to just tell them about it using the cartoon thing. She suggested that I say something like, "I'd love to see a PG13 version of Princess Parsippany Meets Megaman, with lots of kissing and hugging and fondling, but nothing more explicit. You're still talking about a cartoon, see, but now the guy knows you don't want to do anything involving penetration or anything."

"And the guy might say, "I want to see a hentai version of Princess Parsippany and Megaman with bondage and enemas and lots of cum on her face," Monica suggested in her faux-helpful way.

"Hentai themes show up more often than you'd think," said Joanie, grinning. "Mostly, it's the guys who bring it up. Sometimes, I do."

"Joanie! Hentai?" cried Monica. Hentai were the worst, most perverted thing in the world, by the lights of many manga fans, including Monica. (She hadn't seen any, but she'd seen some vidcaps on the Net, and heard lots of stories). A girl who'd do hentai would do anything, including things that weren't exactly physically possible.

"Oh, don't give me that look," Joanie said. "It's not so bad. In fact, it's pretty damn good, if you can find a guy who's any good at it."

"No!" said Monica, scandalized.

"Yes," said Joanie, with just a hint of smugness in her voice. "But I haven't told you the other really clever thing about cosplay."

"Oh?" Monica said, unable to imagine further revelations to match what she'd heard so far.

"Of course, when we do have sex, we leave our costumes on to the greatest extent possible," said Joanie matter-of-factly. "Because afterward, we can say it wasn't us having sex. It was Princess Parsippany and Megaman having sex. We didn't do it. So, afterwards, there's no uncomfortableness. What happens in costume, stays in costume. We're both free to go on and find other superheroes and superheroines to have serious cosplay with."

"So nothing ever comes of these cosplay things?" Monica asked, disappointed.

"Oh, not at all!" said Joanie. "Something can come of it if you WANT it to, it's just that you have a ready-made rationale for something NOT happening. I can name a dozen married couples right off the top of my head who'll tell you they met while doing serious cosplay. Most of them still do it, although their kids can make that a problem."

"I guess that makes sense," said Monica.

"Of curse it makes sense," said Joanie. "Most of the time, before you get married, you do some fucking. Most mainstream types hook up in bars, go to hotel rooms or whatever and hook up. We do it in costume, at cons, but still, people form couples and hook up some of the time, just like anyone else. I'm pretty sure I could have a regular boyfriend or three right now, if I wanted one. Or several. But I'm like you, I don't feel like being in any kind of serious relationship yet. That's why I'm telling you about this. It works for me. It might work for you."

"So all this time we thought you were just having generic fun parading around the halls in your costume, you were on the prowl for guys?" Monica mused.

"Well, I was having generic fun, too," said Joanie, "but I did have my eye out for cute guys."

"I can't believe you've never been caught at it," said Monica.

"It's extremely hard to catch anyone at it unless they want to be caught," said Joanie. "I mean, all a stranger is gonna see is me standing in the hall talking with some guy. They might even see me and him going to his room or my room, but if anybody asks, all we have to do is say we went in to watch a Princess Parsippany video or whatever. Even if you knocked on the door half an hour later, we'd answer the door fully dressed, because we keep our costumes on, or most of our costumes on. It's really just about impossible to catch us at it unless your roomie busts in on you. Even then, you can at least get enough of your costume back on so no one will know exactly what you were doing."

"Well, you have a good point," said Monica. "I never heard a single rumor about you having sex with boys, ever, and there are rumors about practically everyone. I thought you were the most virginal person I know. And while I'm not going to tell anyone about you because I swore I wouldn't, even if I did, who'd believe me? I didn't believe you at first."

"Well, I'm glad you are going to keep your promise, because if my parents even heard so much as a rumor, they'd freak."

"So, you think I should try this costume thing and have sex with guys and not have to worry about them wanting me to marry them or anything?" Monica asked.

"No, I'm just saying that it worked for me, and it's an option you might wanna think about," said Joanie. "With the body you've gotten from all that belly dancing ... and ... say, I HAVE heard a rumor about you, and here's a chance to clear it up. Will you swear not to get mad if I ask you something, and to answer honestly?"

"Sure," said Monica. It was an easy assurance to give. She didn't get mad easily, and she didn't think she had any secrets worth knowing, except for maybe how she finished up her dance rehearsals, and she didn't think anybody could know that, because she'd never told anyone.

"Then swear it," said Joanie. She was big on formal swearing.

"I swear ... to God ... that I won't get mad at whatever Joanie is about to ask me, and to answer her honestly," Monica said.

"OK, then," said Joanie. "So, did you get implants over Christmas this year? Because your breasts have gotten, um, notably bigger."

Monica laughed. "No," she said, grinning. "I did not get implants over Christmas. My breasts did get a lot bigger over the year, but they just grew. My hips go wider and my butt got bigger and rounder, too. I think it might be a late hit of extra hormones brought on by the sexy belly dancing. But I don't know. All I know is, suddenly I look a lot more like the hotties in my dad's porn stash."

"That's gotta be weird," said Joanie sympathetically.

"Oh, yeah, it's weird all right," said Monica. "But in a good way. I mean, people, and especially boys and men, but some women, too -- treat you a LOT better if you're hot. I'm still trying to get used to having things handed to me because I might want them rather than having to ask for them. And of course, some boys think they can bully or intimidate you into sleeping with them or whatever, and others are just absolute assholes, and now all of a sudden they are absolute assholes who want to have sex with you. I mean, for some guys, Hallmark ought to have a line of "Say it with pepper spray" cards."

"Oh, assholes have their little ways with women they consider unattractive, too," observed Joanie.

"They sure do," agreed Monica, "but they aren't hot to literally fuck you, and that makes a huge difference in how much of an asshole they're willing to be -- they really crank it to the max. But the real thing is, regular guys are much more prone to be assholes if they think you're unattractive. On the other hand, they're really nice to you if they think you're hot, for the most part. That's what makes the real difference, and that's why I said, the cheerleaders who think looks don't matter are just full of shit."

"Well, it's nice to know someone who's honest about it," said Joanie.

"And I have to tell you, what I've learned about looks makes me wonder about all those people who say that money doesn't matter as well," said Monica, grinning.

* * *

A few days later, Monica and Joanie were sitting outside Starbuck's having mocha lattes and talking quietly at a distant table where no one would overhear them.

"OK, I'm going to do it," said Monica, smiling at Joanie.

"You're going to do what, exactly?" asked Joanie.

"I'm going to go to a SciFiFunCon in costume and have lots of fun with boys," Monica said calmly.

"Who are you going as?" Joanie asked, cutting right to what was, for any cosplayer, the chase.

"I'm going as Slavegirl Belinda, the "DragonWars II: Reheated" version," responded Monica.

"Not that one! You know you're going to get yourself arrested if your costume is anything CLOSE to authentic!" cried Joanie.

"Actually, no," said Monica. "I got online and went to all the fansites where they post pics of the floor costumes. The rule is, no nudity, but all that means is, no visible nipples and no visible pussy. Anything else is fair game. I saw pictures of girls wearing nothing but strategically placed strips of police tape. There were a couple who had just painted latex over their breasts. I'm going to be wearing actual clothes, Joanie. I think I'll be OK."

"Oh, come on, the outfit Belinda wears in "Reheated" could be folded up and put in a thimble with room to spare," said Joanie.

"Not true, not true at all," said Monica. "In that episode Belinda also wears a collar, wrist slave cuffs, ankle slave cuffs, a belly chain, armbands and a ballgag necklace. I'll wear all that, along with the thong and bra set, which I admit is kinda postage stamp-y, but I'll shave down there and glue the fabric down so the fabric doesn't slip off my nipples and so forth, so I'll be OK for the Con floor."

"I don't believe it," said Joanie.

"You know, I didn't think you would," said Monica, "so I made up a slideshow and put it on my laptop. Take a look."

Monica passed her laptop over to Joanie. It was already queued up for the slideshow, and all Joanie had to do was thumb through the slides.

"Why do you have to go to the convention practically naked anyway?" Joanie asked. "I don't show a lot of skin, and I always have good luck with the guys."

"That's because your costumes are perfect and you look good in them," said Monica. "Anyway, it's not so much about attracting boys, I seem to be pretty good at that lately."

"I'll grant you that," Joanie murmured as she looked at the pictures in Monica's slideshow.

"The thing is, I thought about what I'd like to do at the Con, and it occurred to me that when I went to the Cons before, what I had really wanted to do since I became aware of boys was spend most of my time crawling all over cute boys, preferably while wearing as little clothing as possible. I always envied the beautiful girls who came to the Con and spent the whole time wandering around in a costume that was mostly just a skimpy bikini posing for photos with cute guys and hugging and kissing and being hugged and kissed by everyone. And I was thinking about what you told me, and I realized that I could DO that now. I could be that beautiful girl in that skimpy costume, and spend the whole Con getting all the hugging and smooching and male attention I never got before. I can spend four days doing NOTHING but smoozing on cute boys while pretty much naked, and I can't think of ANYTHING in the world I'd rather do."

"Wow!" said Joanie, impressed by the depth and power of Monica's vision of what a science fiction con could be. "So, you planning on sleeping with any of these cute boys you're going to be swarming all over? Because if you don't, you're going to get so horny from crawling all over them that after a couple of hours you're going to start leaving STAINS on them. You know what kind of stain."

"Eeeeew!" said Monica.

"Don't 'eeeeew' me," responded Joanie. "You know it's true. If all you're wearing is that teensy little thong bottom Belinda wears in "Reheated," it's going to ooze right past it and show on your thigh."

"Eeeeew!" said Monica. She couldn't help it.

"Exactly," said Joanie. "You'll be running around for four days with love juices running down your legs. Boys will figure all they have to do to have you is bend you over and slide the thong to one side."

"Eeeew!" Monica cried again, but there was a note of glee in her "Eeeews!" She LIKED the idea of spending four days naked and hot for sex. "I guess that must be why I'm planning to go on the Pill."

"Good idea," said Joanie.

"Well, it's not like I'm PLANNING to make love to any boys," said Monica. "But I have to admit, with the plans I do have, it's possible I'm going to want it real bad, and lose control. So I thought I'd play it safe."

"Right," said Joanie, not buying it for a minute. If ever a girl had planned to lose her cherry, Monica was planning to lose hers. "Anyway, I've finished the slideshow, and I see your point. Even the "Reheated" costume is kinda conservative compared to the stuff some of them were wearing. I mean, there's bondage fairies at SciFiFunCon! Bondage fairies! And what about the gal who came as Lady Varida wearing nothing but cotton balls glued to her nipples and pubic area? I mean, if these girls didn't get arrested, no one ever will."

"That's what I figured too," said Monica. "I mean, let's face it ... some girls just plain play the naked card at cons -- I've seen it at a lot of cons, but I never really thought about it before. I just figured they were sluts who were hot for boys. And I was right. Now things are different, though."

"How different?" asked Joanie.

"Now, I'm a slut who's hot for boys, too," said Monica with a grin. "You gonna help me with my costume?"

"Thought you'd never ask," said Joanie, grinning. "But you have to swear you'll follow through on that birth control thing."

"I swear ..." said Monica.

* * * Building Monica's Slavegirl Belinda outfit to match the one in the comic book was easy -- there just wasn't much to it. But Monica wanted to dance in it, and be active during the Con in it, and that created issues.

The artists who drew the Slavegirl Belinda didn't have much understanding of either costuming or gravity, to judge by the images. Slavegirl Belinda was constantly doing double back flips, flying kicks, twirls and rolls while dressed in her tiny costume and never did anything fall out.

Joanie and Monica started out making a simple reproduction of the Slavegirl Belinda bikini in Monica's size. Monica tried it on.

Joanie started laughing. Even standing still, her nipples tended to work their way out from behind the tiny patches of cloth that were supposed to conceal them, and the tiny thong bottom tended to slip between the folds of her labia. At the merest hint of a shoulder roll, both breasts came spilling out of her top immediately, provoking more laughter from Joanie, and Monica joined in. It was a very silly costume for anyone who was planning to do anything other than stand very still.

Hip drops made the thong slide out of place, figure eights made it try to hide in the folds of her labia. Very successfully. More laughter ensued.

Despite the laughter, neither Monica nor Joanie was the least bit surprised at this. Experienced at making costumes for cons, they were well aware that the artwork their costumes were based on had no basis in reality and would have to be significantly modified to be wearable. They were expert at this sort of thing, though to be honest they had never attempted it on a costume whose basic problem was extreme skimpiness before.

Problems with less skimpy costumes were easier to fix because there was plenty of room for hidden stays and straps and so forth. But Belinda's costume was notably brief -- there was a reason that Slavegirl Belinda was snarkily called "Naked Girl" by some.

(The creators of the Slavegirl Belinda comic claimed that Belinda's nakedness was a matter of historical verisimilitude, that historically slaves had gone about naked or nearly so in many societies. But they weren't fooling anyone -- many fanboys had noted that if historical verisimilitude were at all important to them, they probably wouldn't have given Belinda the Third Eye Hypno-Ray, an invisible third eye that could appear at will in the middle of her forehead and hypnotize people, such as her captors, as there was very little in the way of historical documentation for such an organ.)

Monica and Joanie would never consider altering the Slavegirl Belinda costume in any way that was visible. They were true cosplayers. Getting a detail wrong on a costume Just Wasn't Done. Oh, some cosplayers would go to cons in costumes that were departures from canon in some minor or major way, but the end result for them was serious loss of status from the other cosplayers. Among true players, you didn't make costumes that were almost right, and you didn't make excuses. You made costumes that were exactly right.

Fortunately, Monica and Joanie had resources for dealing with the problems posed by a skimpy costume, because of course Slavegirl Belinda, although an extreme example, was far from the only female character who wore a skimpy costume, and whose creators were not much burdened by knowledge or concern about the effects gravity had on, say, breasts.

They had three weapons -- design, materials and so-called invisible straps. Invisible straps were made of a transparent material that didn't show up at all on skin, unless you looked closely. Although strictly speaking they were a departure from canon for most skimpy costumes, they were allowed in general acknowledgment that many comic artists and so forth had little or no interest or concern in the practicality of their costumes.

These invisible straps might help Monica keep the two tiny triangles that were all Belinda had for a bra in place.

Design was best illustrated by the thong bottom. As even a cursory glance at some music videos will demonstrate, it is possible for a woman to dance quite vigorously in a very skimpy thong without having it slip off and expose any naughty bit.

Partly this is because the naughty bits in question are quite small and discreet, in the case of a woman. But it's also because the thong accommodates the natural design and tendencies of the wearer's body.

For example, the rear strap is sunken right between the buttocks, right where anatomy dictates it should be. If you tried to place the strap anywhere else on the buttocks, the strap would show an irresistible tendency to slip between the butt cheeks anyway. The strap is where it wants to be, held in by the warm embrace of the butt cheeks. As such, the rear strap is admirably suited to act as anchor, holding the rest of the thong in place.

The problem with the thong pouch sinking into the labia was solved with materials. They made the thong pouch of leather, not the supple kind but something a little stiffer, lined at the edges with a softer material so it wouldn't chafe. Because it was stiffer, it didn't sink into Monica's labia when she moved. Held in place at the bottom by the rear strap, it wouldn't slide up, and held in place at the top by her waistband, it couldn't slip out of place.

The waistband was the really hard part of the costume. Under the tremendous strain of the G-forces generated by Monica's gyrating hips when she really got going with the figure-eights, the waistband tended to slip downward, leading to a naughty-bit revealing looseness of the thong pouch. They solved that problem with materials again -- they discovered that a slightly elastic band with a rough surface, as most of them were, would give as her hips moved without slipping, held in place by the tackiness of the material.

The real problem was the bra. Most bras were designed to have plenty of support, since they are basically baskets for the breasts, slung in front of the chest and well supported by straps over the shoulders and around the back.

But the bra worn by Slavegirl Belinda was two tiny triangles of material that barely hid the nipples, held in place by thin strands -- basically, strings -- of material running over the shoulders and around the back.

It was difficult for Monica and Joanie to come up with a way that any arrangement of straps that looked as described could keep Monica's nipples concealed during normal activity and the merest hint of a shoulder roll invariable dislodged the breast from its "bra."

(Shoulder rolls are the technique used by belly dancers to make their breasts shimmy so enticingly when they dance. Skilled use of the shoulder roll allows the dancer, with relatively little effort or movement, to set the breasts or anything attached to them, gyrating wildly. Traditionally, belly dancers wear very sturdy bras.)

After repeated failures one afternoon, they gave up for a time.

"It's just impossible," said Joanie. "There's no way I can get those strips to hold you in."

Joanie did not say anything, but it was evident that she considered a large part of the problem to be the size of Monica's breasts. There was a reason Monica was rumored to have purchased implants. And even worse than implants, which tended to be firm and not move around too much, Monica's breasts were quite floppy and did an excellent job of gyrating wildly when she did shoulder rolls.

Monica, desperate, did some research, as she was prone to do when encountering a problem in any of her hobbies. And soon solved the problem.

"We've been going at it backwards," Monica told Joanie the following weekend. "We've been trying to secure the bra on with the straps. That will never work, not with the amount of strap we have to work with. What we need to do is glue the fabric to my breasts and let the straps be purely decorative."

"Sounds like that might hurt a lot," said Joanie.

"Not at all," said Monica. "It turns out that back when it was illegal to show your nipples in public under any circumstances, strippers used to get around the law by wearing something called "pasties." The pasties were just circular bits of fabric or metal which they glued to their breasts."

"OK, I've heard of pasties," said Joanie. "But would glue work? And can you get it off?"

"Yes and yes," said Monica. "You have to remember, pasties were worn by women giving public performances who would be arrested if they slipped. They're very secure. And they were used by some performers for years, and all the ads for pastie glue say it comes off easily, so yes, it'll work."

"All the ads," asked Joanie.

"It's still pretty popular, apparently," said Monica. "Lots of Internet sites that sell sexy lingerie stuff carry it. And pasties."

"Do they have pasties that look like Slavegirl Belinda's bikini top?" asked Joanie.

"No," said Monica. "I looked. But I'm sure pastie glue will work with fabric, though some of the ads say it leaves a residue. So I've ordered several bottles, they should be in by next week."

"OK," said Joanie. "We can give it a try."

The pastie glue arrived in the middle of the week and next weekend Joanie and Monica tried them out. They worked perfectly. Shoulder rolls had no effect on it.

"Yeah, but won't you sweat it off if you dance for any length of time?" Joanie asked.

"Nope," said Monica, "it's basically gum arabic, which isn't water or sweat soluble. You have to wash it off with alcohol."

"Sounds harsh," said Joanie.

"It's not something I'd want to do every day for a year," said Monica. "But for four days at a con? You betcha!"

They worked with the "pastie" solution and discovered that very elastic strings gave the illusion that they were holding the bra in place, and also that they dug into the flesh of Monica's breasts slightly, giving the illusion that they were being strained to the breaking point, threatening the loss of her bra. Or seeming to. Since the elastic bands were VERY stretchy and not responsible for holding the triangles on anyway, there was never any danger.

After a couple of hours of very easy work, they had two Slave Belinda bikinis completed. That night, Monica took them home and gave one of them the acid test -- she wore it throughout her fun dancing period (though she discarded the bottom when it was time to whip out the silk scarves).

Monica worked especially hard on her shoulder rolls, sending her breasts shimmying furiously within the bra, much harder and longer than was required in any dance. The imaginary boys liked that a lot. If the elastic bands had any tendency to snap under pressure, they would have snapped then, because Monica's breasts were flying furiously in all directions, as she made abrupt changes in the direction and speed of her shimmies. She bounced up and down as hard as she could as well.

Nothing came loose, not once, though even moderate shimmying made the straps appear to be ready to break at any instant.

The boys were thrilled, delirious about the Belinda bikini. Which was exactly how Monica felt, too.

Now they just had to make a few more bikinis, just to be safe. The Con would last four days and Belinda intended to wear no other costume. Hell, except for the street clothes she would arrive and depart in, she intended to wear no other clothing.

Monica had high hopes that SciFiFunCon would be a fun convention.

SciFiFunCon, Day 1

Monica went in on a room with Joanie and Tammy and Linda for SciFiFunCon. The Hyatt was expensive at the best of times, and at SciFiFunCon the rooms went for just over $200 a night. That was a little harsh for a teen or young adult pocketbook, especially for four nights, but split four ways it was MUCH more bearable. It wasn't at all uncommon for young SciFiFunCon attendees to pack 6 or even 8 to a room for that reason -- strictly against hotel policy, but since the young adults didn't announce their intentions to the hotel, and they rarely spent more than 3 or 4 hours maximum in the room while napping, there was no way for the hotel to know.

The lobby on the opening day of a con was always fun, because some of the attendees liked to arrive in costume. The business travelers and non-SciFiFunCon event attendees who were checking in were fun to watch as they eyeballed the stream of superheroes, manga characters and Goths as they arrived in full regalia.

Monica was more circumspect. She and Joanie arrived in street clothes. They had a lot of luggage because Joanie had a lot of costumes. Monica's costume could have fit easily in her purse. The non-jewelry parts would have fit easily in her wallet. Monica just didn't want any hotel staff making any easy connections between Room 715 and the almost naked Slavegirl Belinda roaming the halls, just in case.

Of course, the floor costume that Monica had modeled for her parents had had considerably more to it. There had been a fringed waist wrap that went down below her knees and a much larger bra that almost entirely concealed her breasts. Her parents still thought it a little too little, or in Jim's case, a lot too little, but as Monica was practically 18, they didn't feel safe in pushing her too far, lest she spend the entire con running around stark naked and having sex with boys.

Still, they weren't too worried. They had attended Cons themselves on many occasions. The boys who attended them were a nice bunch.

"I am so fucking nervous," said Monica, "I am having a lot of trouble sitting still right now."

"Well, ya gotta," said Joanie, "or the glue won't dry and you might as well not wear the top at all because you'll be falling out of it constantly."

"I know," said Monica.

Still it was hard. All those boys out there. She was hot to meet them, and she was afraid to at the same time. This wasn't like those times when she had gone to the beach in a thong bikini. For one thing, the thong bikini has been considerably less skimpy than this costume -- she had to shave every bit of hair from her pussy because the thong's pouch was just too small to hide any pubic hair -- it barely covered her pubes themselves. The elastic bands in the waist made sure that if it got out of adjustment momentarily, it would slide back easily. And also so that when Monica needed to go to the bathroom, or met a cute guy, she could easily pull them down or remove them entirely, and get them back in place.

In return for all of Joanie's help, Monica had put in a lot of sweat equity on Joanie's too. It was just the sort of innocent, fun activity that made Monica and Joanie's parents very glad that they had raised such wholesome, innocent girls.

And wholesome and innocent though they were, they weren't incautious. They had made a slight modification to the design of the Slavegirl Belinda cuffs on Monica's wrists There was a huge rounded hinge where the cuffs supposedly opened and closed. The actual hinge was much smaller and was built into the body of the cuff (which was in fact adapted from a bracelet). The large clasp was a plastic fake that had been glued in place, but its rounded end could easily be pulled out, because it was actually the cap of a pepper gas sprayer that fitted inside the clasp. Each of Monica's cuffs had one of these.

If any guy got out of line, she would spray it in his eyes. Even at a con, there could be assholes who might easily become rapist assholes under the wrong circumstances. Monica wasn't too worried about this eventuality, or she would never have come dressed as she was. Most con guys were wonderful people. But her experiences as a hottie had convinced her that hotties were especially targeted by assholes, so she felt it wise to be prepared. Besides, Slavegirl Belinda had her Third-Eye Hypno Ray to neutralize opponents, and pepper spray was the closest thing Monica had as its equivalent.

Joanie had some pepper spray too. Boys could get kinda crazy about sex.

There were a couple of other non-standard items on Monica's person. Clipped to her waist chain was her con badge, without which there were places she couldn't go, and she had a slave bag hung around her neck in lieu of her purse. The slave bag had actually appeared in many episodes of Belinda, but not in "Reheated."

"How are the wings looking?" Joanie asked. Joanie's floor costume was Lady Doom from Asteroid Revengers. It involved thigh-high black boots, a bright yellow spandex bodysuit with a thick waistbelt that served as a corset and general concealer of excess waistline. She also had a pair of pink gossamer wings that looked a lot like the fairy wings beloved of little girls everywhere. Wings were generally considered one of the biggest pains in the ass to wear by experienced cosplayers, since they were very prone to get caught in doorways and crowds and whatnot, and if not crumpled, easily knocked astray. Still, cosplayers ranged from scrupulous to insanely obsessive about details, and if your character had wings and your costume didn't, they would know you weren't a real cosplayer.

"The wings look fine," said Monica after carefully inspecting them.

"You ready to hit the floor?" asked Joanie.

"As ready as I'll ever be," Monica said nervously.

"You can always wear the wrap and the other bra if you're nervous," Joanie said, detecting Monica's nervousness.

"No," Monica said. "Let's do it."

And out the door they went.

One of Monica's fears about attending the con mostly naked was that she would be totally self-conscious about her mostly-nakedness. And she was, for about two minutes. That's because when they were standing outside the elevators waiting to go down to the first floor, a familiar figure in an Indiana Jones costume came up to them.

"Hey, Sam!" Joanie called happily. Sam was a fellow cosplayer who favored Indiana Jones because he had a bit of middle aged spread and the bomber jacket helped conceal it, and because he liked the character anyway.

"Joanie?" said Sam. He peered at Monica for a moment.

"Hiya, Sam!" Monica called cheerfully, deeply aware that Sam had not recognized her, perhaps because too much of her body was on display. It might be hard to see her face behind all that flesh.

"Monica?" Sam asked incredulously, to be reassured by Monica's nod. "So what the hell happened to you two in the last year? Did the beautiful fairy just come along and club you both over the head with her wand as hard as she could or what? You both look GORGEOUS!"

Monica and Joanie grinned from ear to ear. It was just the sort of comment they had been hoping to hear.

"Can I get a picture?" asked Sam, whipping out the small digital camera that almost every con attendee who wasn't carrying a videocam carried.

Joanie assumed her classic Lady Doom pose, crouched with one arm extended and one finger raised, the other pulled back into a fist. Monica assumed her classic Slavegirl Belinda posed, her arms held behind her back as if bound, her right leg extended, her hips thrust slightly to the left, her shoulders slightly to the right, her head tilting back to the left and her chin slightly raised, a slight smile playing across her lips.

"Oh, that's great!" said Sam. "Now can I get one with each of you?"

They were only too glad to oblige. This was the major activities of cosplayers during the day, walking the floors of the con hotels and photographing other cosplayers and being photographed by them. That said, the vast majority of people who photographed you were not cosplayers, but con attendees who were here for other reasons, such as liking manga or SF, or in the case of SciFiFunCon, being a Goth or a party person, as SciFiFunCon welcomed Goths, who seemed to like it, and its size and success had attracted a sizable contingent of people who just liked a party, who also were welcomed. Which is probably the reason the con had succeeded to the extent that it now sprawled over a complex of three interconnected hotels and an office complex with a food court. So there was quite a bit of walking one could do, which was quite appealing for those who liked to wear their costumes throughout the con.

Sam handed Monica his camera and stood next to Joanie while Monica snapped a pic of them with Sam's arm wrapped around her shoulders and Joanie's arm wrapped around his waist. Then it was Monica's turn to pose while Joanie snapped. Monica adopted the same pose, with Sam carefully placing his arm around her shoulder so as not to be touching her breasts, which were pretty much hanging out there. Monica snuggled right into Sam, wrapping her arms around his waist and belly and wrapping one leg around his legs. It was a friendly, comfy pose that let Monica get plenty of male flesh contact. (Of course, Monica would never have put things in such crass terms, but if you worked through all the euphemisms and rationalizations -- "I'm just a touchy-feely person," -- that was the essence of it.) It actually felt very good to be snuggled up to Sam. It helped that Sam was an old friend and she was quite comfortable around him.

The same could not be said of Sam. He had known Monica since she'd been a child, and didn't quite know how to handle her since she'd become such a bundle of ripe, womanly flesh. Still, it was easy to put his arm across her shoulders and smile, since they'd been friends at cons for years. When she snuggled up to him, that was all right, too.

"Going to be walking the floor today?" Sam asked conversationally.

"Yeah, that's pretty much the plan for the whole convention," said Monica. "We'll probably do some parties and go to the dealers' room, too, and of course Joanie's in the costume contest."

"What about you?" asked Sam.

"Nah," said Monica. "Not enough fabric in my costume to be competitive."

"Yeah, but it does look like an authentic Slavegirl Belinda costume," said Sam.

"I'd just be embarrassed to go out there in this knowing that there are others who spent all year working on incredibly detailed, elaborate costumes," said Monica matter-of-factly.

"Surely getting into such fabulous shape took some time and wasn't easy," said Sam.

"It took some time, but it was very easy," said Monica. "I got interested in belly dancing, so I belly danced a lot. It was fun. I did it for hours, every night, because I liked it. That's all there was to it."

"I hear from a lot of cosplayers that they like making costumes almost as much as they like wearing them," said Sam.

"Yes, but making costumes isn't the same as practicing belly dancing," said Monica. "If they want to have a belly dance contest, I'll gladly enter it."

"You have a point," said Sam.

"Also, I helped Joanie make some of her costumes," said Monica. "So I get to share in her victory if she wins."

"Have a great con," said Sam as they stepped off the elevator. They were on the lower floor of the convention hall, where the dealer's rooms were as well as some large meeting hall. There was a large open space near the escalator leading up to the main floor, where it was customary for cosplayers to pose for photographs.

Even before they got to the photo area, where they had been planning to take photos, people were pulling Slavegirl Belinda aside for photos. Not all of them knew Monica's name, but they knew Slavegirl Belinda because her image was all over the Web. (Slavegirl Belinda was a little too "hot" for mainstream media, but she was just right for the Web.)

In fact, the next two hours were nonstop posing for photos in the photo area. At first she was so overwhelmed by all the attention and the requests to pose that she just did as they asked and pretty much forgot that she was almost naked and that she planned to crawl all over cute guys. But after 45 minutes or so of continuous posing, Monica got acclimated to posing for photos and started to notice that some of the boys she was posing with were kinda cute, and even a lot of the non-cute ones were nice to snuggle up to. Some of the boys were not nice to snuggle up to, because they were hard-core gamers, and some hard core gamers tended not to worry about things like sleeping or bathing during a con. Or during the rest of their lives, for all Monica cared. Her rule was, no bathee, no hugee. Otherwise, she was generous with the hugs.

Still, a lot of the guys who wore costumes were really cute. And gradually, Monica started crawling all over them. It was subtle stuff, she wasn't sliding her hands down their pants and groping their trouser snakes or anything. She'd just snug her body right next to the guy rather than doing that stand-with-arms-linked-at-shoulders-and-bodies-inches-apart "hug" that some cosplayers did when posing with guys (or gals) they didn't know.

Not a single guy complained. Not even the guys who felt Monica's hands on their butt while she hugged them.

The thing that got to Monica and got her loosened up enough that she was groping guys' butts in public without really thinking about it was smelling them. She had always liked the way guys smelled if they were clean. They didn't have to smell like soap or anything, there was just a natural good smell to guys that Monica hadn't had much chance to experience back in the day. Now she was actually, intentionally, whiffing guys as she hugged them, and it was getting her hot. Which was why she was feeling them up. And seeking out cute guys. Not that there was any great effort required. There were still thousands of people left to come to the con, but tens of thousands were already here, having arrived as early as Tuesday (it was Friday). The Con was in the morning of its first day, just warming up as it were, and already there were hundreds of people wandering the floor in costumes ranging from Imperial Storm Troopers in imposing armor (Monica didn't like them, no man flesh to hug) to girls in cat ears with their faces painted catlike and maybe a fur tail hanging from their belts, but otherwise conventionally dressed.

It was huge fun, being among them and one of them, and also being made much of by all of them for the first time. She'd always felt that she was a part of the crowd -- the easy acceptance and friendship was what had first won her over to cons.

But now she wasn't just a fan, or a cosplayer, she was a HOTTIE, and she was enjoying every second of being a hottie. Hug this guy, grope that guy, kneel before this guy, feel that guy's hands on her hips, feel the other guys hands on butt, and feel the eyes of all the people looking at her and seeing how hot she was.

After almost three hours of it, Monica suddenly felt tired, perhaps because it had been almost constant physical activity, and she begged off a few chances to pose, and just sat on a railing.

And she caught a whiff of herself. The smell she smelled sent blood rushing to her cheeks, and she quickly and quietly headed to the public rest rooms in one corner of the atrium. Fortunately, it was not crowded at all, and she was able to go immediately to a stall, sit spraddle-legged on it, and wipe off the sex goo that was trickling down her leg.

Monica was appalled at how much of it there was. It must have been oozing out of her for the past two hours at least.

Part of Monica was horrified and wanted nothing but to run up to her room and spend the rest of the con cowering beneath the sheets there.

But it was a small part of Monica, and a doomed one. Because the much larger part of her wanted nothing more than to get back out there on the con floor and crawl over more of those cute boys. So she would have a little womanly odor. That was OK, she was a woman. Anyway, she had a little something with her that would help.

Monica reached into her slave bag, which was a simple leather pouch cinched with a leather thong whose ends were tied together and hung around her neck, and pulled out a small bottle of perfume. Conforming with her Slavegirl Belinda persona, the perfume was cheap stuff, the sort that was sold for a dollar or two at discount stores and intended for small girls -- not Joy or anything like that. The sort of perfume a modern slavegirl might wear. Monica had gotten her mom to buy such perfumes for her when she was a girl, and she still liked the smell of most of them, tough there was one she'd bought when she was about nine, in what she remembered as a quart bottle and used by the cupful, that she'd seriously overdosed on and could no longer stand the smell of, but she liked the particular cheap perfume she had with her in the slave bag a lot. She applied it sparingly. It had a strong pear-like scent that went a long way.

She put way more perfume on her than she ordinarily would have, because it needed to mask the smell of her, um, excitement. She'd always used perfume extremely sparingly, because all the girls at school figured you were using it as a substitute for bathing if you had more than the merest whisper of scent on you. Whether it was true or not, they'd take great joy in proclaiming it to be true.

Feeling much more composed, with the fearful part of her much relieved and that other part still dying to get at the boys again (as if they would vanish if she did not go out there and start rubbing on them soon), Monica left the stall.

She immediately saw Joanie standing there.

"Monica, are you OK?" Joanie asked.

"I'm fine," said Monica, grinning.

"You sure headed for this bathroom fast," said Joanie.

"Had to freshen up a bit, is all," said Monica.

"Things getting a little sticky down there?" asked Joanie.

"Just a general freshening up," said Monica.

"Nice perfume you're wearing," Joanie said.

"Like I said, I needed to freshen up," Monica said calmly.

"OK," said Joanie. "You sure looked like you were having a wonderful time. Those fans have been all over you for photos all morning."

"God, yes," agreed Monica. "It's been a blast."

"And I've seen you crawling all over cute boys just like you said you would be," Joanie observed.

"That was the plan," Monica said, grinning.

"It's working," said Joanie, grinning back, "and I'm glad you're having a good time. But you might want to cool it down with the crawling all over the guys a little. Save some for later."

"Why?" Monica asked.

"Because the way you're going, you're going to be getting photographed gang-banging half of the 555th in the next few hours, and I think that's gonna be hard to explain to your mom and dad."

"Don't worry," said Monica. "I don't plan to do anything more than hugging and kissing."

"Considering the nature of your costume, it wouldn't take much MORE than hugging and kissing to get you in trouble," Joanie said.

"Don't worry," said Monica. "If I find things are getting too hot, I'll just run into the ladies' room for a little freshening. No sex, I promise."

"Listen," said Joanie, "it's not the sex. If you really get all hot and bothered and you just HAVE to do it, pick out some nice cute guy and GO TO A ROOM and do it. With the door closed. With no cameras. Because ANY amount of ANY kind of sex in a private room will give you a LOT less grief than being seen doing so little as reaching into some guy's pants in public."

"What about guys feeling me up?" Monica asked.

"Hand on your butt, OK," said Joanie, "hand in your butt, not OK. No hands in or on your coochie at any time. Breasts, anything goes as long as your nips don't show. Any other part of your body, anything goes, except nobody else's private parts in your mouth."

"Why didn't we discuss this earlier?" Monica asked.

"I didn't realize how hot you were for this game," said Joanie. "I just don't want you to do something you'll regret later."

"I swear to God that if I do anything to regret, I'll do it in some guy's room without any cameras going," Monica promised.

"I guess that'll do," Joanie grinned.

"It's going to have to," said Monica. "Now, let me just head on out there, the boys are waiting."

Joanie stared at Monica's prettily swaying backside as she headed back out on the con floor. Had she created a monster?

The boys, as it turned out, were not waiting. Several Slave Leias from Star Wars Episode V had made an appearance. They were posing with cute boys. Monica's cute boys.

Monica wasn't worried. While it was true that Slave Leia was the classic science fiction movie slavegirl, by far the most popular at US cons and the first choice for most women who wanted male attention at SF cons, it was also true that Slave Leia's costume was downright dressy and fuddy-duddy compared to the Slavegirl Belinda gear that Monica was wearing.

The Slave Leia bikini top was huge, covering the breasts completely. The bottom had large "metal" pieces (mostly made of plastic with metallic paint) in front and back that covered up most of the lower abdomen and the upper butt, with large purple "loincloth" pieces hanging from them that covered all of the lower abdomen and the butt. There was also a metal collar, generally with a length of chain attached, an armband, one wristcuff and leather booties. The one saving grace it had from Monica's viewpoint was that it was connected at the hips by a long metal link, and the bra stopped at the edge of the breast, so from the side, a Slave Leia could look quite fleshy, if her long purple skirts in front and in back were pulled to the far side.

Monica could easily have worn her Slavegirl Belinda outfit underneath the Slave Leia outfit and no one would know, except for the fact that her outfit featured ankle shackles, cuffs on both wrists, and a different and more practical design for the Slavegirl Belinda collar.

Compared to the Slave Leias, Slavegirl Belinda was naked. Which meant that a girl in a Slavegirl Belinda was sure to get a lot more attention from boys than a girl in a Slave Leia outfit, all other things being equal, because that was how boys worked.

Monica was right about that, but it was a moot point, because boys still outnumbered girls in naked costumes hugely, and there was plenty of male attention to be had for all of the naked, half-naked and even merely spandex-covered girls. Which was a good thing, because as the afternoon wore on and became evening, Monica and the Slave Leias were joined by women and girls wearing chain mail bikinis and nothing else, women dressed in fur bikinis and nothing else (they tended to carry swords and/or knives, making them warrior women), a woman wearing furry faun legs from the waist down, with two leaves pasted over her nipples from the waist up, belly dancers, Goth women wearing lots of fishnet and very little else (in some cases, just electrical tape -- and the fleshy costumes were still far outnumbered by women wearing skintight spandex superheroine or manga heroine outfits that covered every line in their bodies, but revealed every line in their bodies, too. (Guys wore costumes, too, some of them fleshy and many of the quite sexy, but they were not competition for Monica, as far as she was concerned.)

At some point, Monica overheard someone say that there was a drum circle going on at the mezzanine of one of the other hotels, and they were going to watch the dancing.

"Oh my god!" Monica exclaimed, startling the boy dressed as Spiderman whose lap she was sitting on. He was copping feels of her butt while they talked, and Monica was enjoying it a lot. "I gotta go dance!"

"You can dance?" Spiderman asked, the sluggish recesses of his brain thickened by lust.

"Sure can," Monica said, rising from his lap and leaving his spider-stiffie clearly outlined in spandex. "It's been fun. See ya later, maybe?"

"Uh, sure," said Spiderman, rearranging himself in his seat to conceal his stiffie.

"Bye, then," said Monica, hurrying off to the drum circle.

It was slow going. because people kept asking her for photos, and guys she'd barely been on "hi" status when passing in the halls at previous SciFiFunCons now wanted to give her great big hugs. It could have gone faster, but Monica enjoyed the photos and most of the hugs -- the unwashed still stayed at arms length (a girl's gotta have her standards). But eventually Monica found herself on the mezzanine outside the hotel where they did the drum circles. There were always a couple of guys who brought tom-toms or bongos, and others who drummed on improvised things, like empty plastic trash cans and their own torsos and their girlfriend's butts.

The reason they drummed is, they liked drumming. But they were also encouraged by the fact that people would dance while they drummed. Often, at SciFiFunCon, female people would dance, since SciFiFunCon was unusually well attended by female people. Fully dressed female people were good, but there were also lots of belly dancers showing lots of skin. And party girls wearing next to nothing. Most of the time, the party girls' dancing skills were poor to mediocre, but for the guys who attended cons, it just didn't matter. Women were dancing to their drumbeat. Life was good.

Monica had danced in the drum circle before at previous cons, so she was confident that she would be welcome now. The drum circle was not a competitive event, and heckling was strongly discouraged -- even dancers who were clearly so drunk they were barely able to stand were generally treated with genial good cheer.

The only kind of dancing Monica was really good at was belly dancing, but she WAS really good at that, so that's what she did. She made her way into the drum circle and assumed the "ready" stance, with both arms extended above the head to full length, wrists held back to back with the fingers extended, one leg and one hip thrust slightly forward. Monica began with some slow, simple hip drops, which she expanded into full hip rolls, slow hip rolls which gradually went faster and faster, clashing imaginary finger cymbals together in time with her hips to help her catch the beat. When her hips and her fingers were working together in time with the predominant beat of the drum circle (not all the drummers in the circle could keep time, some could just barely drum) Monica began to dance, moving her feet in time to the music.

The pace of the drum circle's beat was quite fast, so fast that the motion of Monica's hips was sending the small chains on her waist belt flying in all directions -- as intended. If she'd been wearing her full belly dancing costume, the effect would have been even more powerful, as it included strategically placed silk scarves at her hips, wrists and elbows as well as a nice coin bra that shimmied very nicely in time with her breasts.

The Slavegirl Belinda outfit, while lacking all this accouterment, had an advantage that far outshone the belly dancing costume -- it allowed watchers full view of the wonderful gyrations of Monica's beautifully healthy, ripe, nubile woman-flesh.

Most especially, they had a great view of her hips and butt and breasts as they moved in time to the music. It's a great irony that the body parts that move most enticingly, from a male point of view and probably from any point of view if you're being honest, are generally concealed beneath several layers of cloth while dancing anyplace but a strip club.

The Slavegirl Belinda costume, as would befit a slavegirl outfit, gave all of Monica's flesh freedom to sway, wriggle, shake and roll enticingly, except for her breasts. The two triangles of black leather, held in place by elastic bands that looked like thick black leather thongs, seemingly would not allow Monica's large natural breasts to gyrate as wildly and freely as they would if she were totally topless, but it could be argued that they were even more effective than actual toplessness in certain respects. The way her breasts strained and bulged against the bra was almost as dramatic as her free-swinging breasts would have been. And given the fact that her breasts were in fact swinging freely, it could be argued that the way her breasts constantly threatened to burst out of her bra top added an element of suspense that otherwise would have been entirely missing.

Monica's breasts appeared to surge against her bra like twin tidal waves hitting a flimsy breakwall, threatening to burst through at any moment.

Next, Monica worked some pelvic thrusts into her dance routine. She had taken special interest in pelvic thrusts because Madame Yasmina had been so quick to inform the class that pelvic thrusts should be done very subtly, otherwise they could very easily become vulgar.

"Vulgar." Monica knew what that meant with regard to dance. It was an exact cognate of the words "fun" and "sexy." So in her private practices at home, Monica had fully explored the vulgarity potential of pelvic thrusts, and quite a few other moves as well, to her very great pleasure.

Monica had tried to keep her pelvic thrusts short of the "vulgar" range while attending class, but Madam Yasmina's "vulgar" trigger was set quite low where pelvic thrusts were concerned, and she got called down a lot for vulgar thrusting. Fortunately, so did most everyone else in the class. It tickled Monica's funny bone to hear Madame Yasmina upbraiding women her mom's age for being too vulgar with their pelvic thrusts, especially when they came back with responses like, "Gimme a break, these hips have borne three kids, they know their way around."

Now Monica gave free reign to her pelvis' penchant for vulgarity, though she kept it within the confines of belly dancing. At past drum circles, she had seen drunken dancers perform pelvic thrusts that were as vulgar as anything she or anyone else could manage, and the problem with them as far as Monica was concerned was that not only were they vulgar, they were artless. They were simply waggling their butts. Monica kept her pelvic thrusts within the context of her hip bumps and rolls, her shoulder rolls, her shimmies, her figure eights, her backbends and her belly rolls.

The belly rolls were what really worked for her. It was one of the hardest moves to do properly, or for that matter, at all. It took control of three different sets of abdominal muscles to do one. The muscles had to be strong, and that meant Monica had to spend many hours doing crunches. She'd done them in class and then done them as a warm up before dancing at home. Monica didn't have any more taste for doing crunches after she started belly dancing than she had before she started, but she found that she could bribe herself into doing things like crunches by using the dancing as a reward.

The thing that Monica had discovered on the first night she had practiced dancing alone in her room was that for her, dancing was pure sex.

Oh, she'd started out dutifully enough, doing the exercises she'd been taught to do in class, but she'd also seen demos of belly dancing by Madam Yasmina and other experienced dancers, and that was what she REALLY wanted to do, not crunches and standing around clenching her buttocks and turning her shoulders this way and that. So after she'd done the exercises, she did her own version of the dancing she'd seen. Her dance was not nearly as skilled as the dances Madame Yasmina had performed, but the crowd of imaginary boys watching her found it hot. And the longer it went on the hotter it got.

Monica had heard from Madame Yasmina that belly dancing had nothing to do with sex, that it was all about worshipping the Moon Goddess and helping women during childbirth.

Monica knew this was bullshit. She knew it in her belly, in her bones, in her very blood but mostly she knew it in her pussy, which very nearly sang for the pleasure of it when Monica danced for her audience of imaginary, cheering boys.

Moon Goddess! Monica's ass knew better than that!

Monica's more rational brain also took note of the fact that the women who were most enthusiastic about all the belly-dance-as-Moon-Goddess-worship stuff were women who weren't all that interested in boys in the first place.

Monica kept these thoughts to herself. All she really cared about was that this belly dancing business gave her the chance to spend several hours a night dancing and feeling sexy and hot and great about herself.

No wonder she got so good at it, so fast.

This was in fact the linchpin of Monica's obsession with belly dancing, because it was what led her to spend a couple of hours a night exercising, almost every night, leaving her much more fit and healthy and better looking.

And Monica knew better than to voice any such opinion to anyone, but she believed that all the sexy dancing and sexual feelings she felt while she danced might just have filled her body with sex hormones and made her breasts bigger, her hips wider and her butt rounder. It didn't matter anyway, the proof was in the pudding, and she was the pudding, and Monica knew it.

That was why with only a year's experience Monica could lean back and do a series of hip rolls that started in her sternum and disappeared into her thong, and to do it very nearly as smoothly as women who had been practicing it much longer.

And as she did it there were cameras flashing all over the place and people were looking at her and Monica took it all in and enjoyed the hell out of it.

It seemed to give her a charge that all those imaginary cute boys who were watching her dance were real now that she was actually dancing at the con. They weren't as handsome as the boys she imagined, and their expressions weren't the ones of wild-eyed amazement and approval she'd imagined (it was more of a blank stare as if she had hypnotized them) but they were REAL. And she was very much the center of their attention.

After about 40 minutes of dancing, it started to get tiring and hence, not be so much fun, so Monica stopped. Many in the crowd voiced cries of good-natured disappointment as she left, but Monica figured the other dancers were relieved that she was no longer around to get all the male attention. It wasn't ego on Monica's part. It was just recognizing what was real.

As she walked into the air-conditioned lobby of the hotel and took the elevator up to the bar and restaurant area, Monica became uncomfortably aware that there was a fine sheen of sweat covering her entire body. As was normal in Atlanta this time of year, the temperature had been in the mid-80s as Monica danced in the early evening. Even at Monica's very high level of fitness, forty minutes of dancing outdoors made for a very sweaty dancer.

So Monica detoured over to the public restrooms, pausing to grab a double handful of paper towels before entering a stall, where she toweled herself dry. Monica would have much preferred to go to her room and shower, but it was two hotels down from where she was now, and with the way people kept asking her to pose and talk with her, that was going to take at least an hour and probably more, and Monica was hungry and thirsty now.

Toweling off had been a powerful reminder to Monica of just how naked she was. There had been very little fussing with straps and such because basically, she was naked.

So Monica was very conscious of being naked as she walked out of the restroom, now relatively sweat-free. But she wasn't bothered about it now, because she'd been just as naked all day, and the only response she'd gotten from the people around her had been approval. (Granted, Monica hadn't been checking out the women around her for their responses, or she would have seen something beside approval, but the point of the con for her was the boys, anyway.)

She walked out into the lobby once again and eyed the bar/restaurant area. As was usual at cons, it was extremely crowded. Two large parties held court at the bar, one a group of hip-looking party people, Goths and a few SF fans, another a group of party people, a few Goths and a lot of SF fans. The mostly party people group were all very attractive people. The more mixed group was more mixed physically -- all sorts of bodies and faces there.

Monica headed for the mixed group, figuring the asshole population there would have to be smaller.

"Slavegirl Belinda!" said one of the guys in the group as soon as she approached. "I saw you in the drum circle -- where did you learn to dance like that?"

"Madam Yasmina's School of Dance," said Monica matter-of-factly.

"Well, come on, lemme buy ya a drink, you must be thirsty," said the guy.

"Yes, I am," said Monica. "I'm REALLY thirsty. Do they serve water at this bar?"

"Among other things," said the guy. "How about a bourbon and branch water?"

"Y'know, I don't think so," said Monica. This guy just wanted to get her drunk. She didn't want to get drunk. She wanted food, water and some time alone with a cute boy. Maybe even a halfway-cute boy would do. Maybe two half-cute boys. But the important thing was, food and water first. And no booze. She didn't want to miss out on her first full-blown sexual fling because she was drunk.

(She'd heard older girls brag about sexual encounters and how drunk they were during them, and she always wondered why they bothered.)

Monica wandered over to the restaurant, getting in line, figuring to take care of her thirst and her hunger simultaneously at the restaurant. But within a minute of being in the line, guys were hitting on her. It was if, you get a smoking hot body and run around naked in public in it, and the guys just won't leave you alone.

Then Monica remembered, the idea was that she didn't want to be left alone. Au contraire.

One of the guys who hit on her was a friend from previous cons, Jordan Ackroyd, dressed now as Mr. Fabulous from the Skyliners comics.

"Hey, Monica, let me buy you dinner," said Jordan, who had never offered to buy Monica anything before and in fact had borrowed ten bucks from her at SciFiFunCon three years before, which he never repaid.

So Monica figured he owed her, anyway.

Jordan had clearly forgotten about the debt.

"And this doesn't have anything to do with the fact that I'm practically naked?" Monica asked conversationally as they waited for the waitress.

"Well, that might be a contributing factor," said Jordan, "along with the fact that you look absolutely awesome. And I saw you dancing in the drum circle earlier, and you were amazing. I mean, you really rock."

"You're just saying that because I'm naked," Monica said with a pout.

"No, I really mean it," said Jordan, grinning. "Anyway, I'm curious, too. What happened to you? You didn't look like this last year, I remember that. And you didn't run around in an authentic Slavegirl Belinda outfit -- I would DEFINITELY have remembered that. And I don't ever remember you dancing like that before, and believe me, I will ALWAYS remember that. So what the heck happened?"

Monica told him all about the belly dancing lessons, although she didn't get into the sex hormones, she did talk about her mom and the kids at school and so forth. And Jordan listened to her and looked interested and didn't try to get her drunk or grope her right there at the table, and he was halfway good-looking and not all that overweight and had social skills (witness the lack of public groping), and at some point during the telling, a thought came to Monica, clear and cool.

It was, "He will do."

After Monica finished telling her story she asked Jordan about his outfit, and he told a much shorter and considerably less interesting story about being a huge fan of Captain Fabulous from childhood.

When he was through, Monica smiled up at Jordan (he was almost a foot taller than her) and asked him, "So, Jordan, you remember the episode of Slavegirl Belinda where she meets the Crunchinator?"

Jordan looked blank for a moment. Monica was betting he was a cosplayer. She could almost see the connection being made in his head. "Yeah, sure, great episode," said Jordan. "I've always wondered though, what might have happened if instead of the Crunchinator she's met up with, say, Captain Fabulous."

"Me, too," said Monica, looking Jordan straight in the eye. "I wonder if we could somehow, do a little research on the topic after we finish eating."

"Oh, we certainly can," said Jordan. Being a comic that was mostly distributed on the Web, "Slavegirl Belinda" had been unusually specific about the details in the romantic liaison between Slavegirl Belinda and the Crunchinator. He was remembering the panels and realizing that his plan to get laid at SciFiFunCon was going to work out after all.

Virgins are typically supposed to be nervous at the prospect of being deflowered, but Monica didn't feel nervous at all. It was more like finally getting a long-anticipated present. Despite her hunger, she found herself wanting the meal over with. She had eaten every day of her life, now was her chance to have real sex with a boy. But she made herself wait, and she made Jordan pay for the meal afterward, too. There was that ten dollars that she remembered.

But as they walked down the halls of the con to Jordan's room, pausing occasionally for a photo, it was all Monica could do to keep from skipping, and if she had had a tail it would have been wagging happily. As it was, her butt was waggling.

As soon as they were in the door to the room Jordan shared with a couple of other guys and determined no one else was crashing there, they kissed, a long deep kiss that involved lots of tongue and lots of feeling up. Monica had had a few kisses like this in the past, but she'd never been so naked or so sure she was going to let the boy who was kissing her fuck her brains out.

They stumbled over to the bed, still lip-locked, then fell on it, laughing. There followed more kissing and much groping. But Monica soon realized there was a problem. Jordan's hands were all over her, and in her almost naked state, it must have felt pretty good to him. But not so for Monica. Jordan's Mr. Fabulous costume was one of those spandex outfits that covered his body from his collarbone to his ankles.

"All right, off with the costume, Jordan," she said.

"Why?" Jordan asked nervously.

"Because I want to feel your skin, not your costume," said Monica. "You're getting to feel my skin, I want to feel yours."

"But your costume IS mostly skin," Jordan protested, laughing.

"So it is, and if we were in a costume contest, that might mean something," Monica said. "But we're making love, and I want me some man flesh to fondle. So off with the costume, before I tear it off."

"But, this is cosplay sex," said Jordan. Well, perhaps whined would be closer to the truth.

Monica pulled away from Jordan.

"You have to make a decision, Jordan," she said. "And you have to make it right now, because in about ten seconds I'm heading out the door, and I'm not coming back, if you don't take that suit off."

"Well, when you put it that way," Jordan said, pulling off his boots in preparation for removing the suit. "But please, don't tell anyone I took the costume off."

"Your secret is safe with me, swear to God," said Monica, realizing that Jordan was actually so concerned about his reputation as a serious cosplayer that he had almost lost a chance to make love with her over it. Weird.

Still, once Jordan had his costume off and had assurances no one would tell about it, he was relaxed enough. The kissing and groping began again, this time to much more pleasant effect, from Monica's point of view. She had been, on a subconscious level, craving boy flesh all day long. The constant hugging and kissing and groping of cute boys all day had had an effect on her. The being almost naked in public all day had also had a slow but steady cumulative effect on her.

But most of all, her dance in the drum circle had had an effect on her. The directly sexual nature of her dances, and the sexual conclusion of them, had affected her powerfully. It was not like belly dancing in Miss Yasmina's class. She had been almost naked. Her moves had been the same raunchy moves she practiced alone in her room at night, which alone would have had her lubricating freely just out of habit. But most of all, boys, real boys, had been watching her. And just like the boys in her fantasies as she danced, they'd been totally turned on by her dance. That had REALLY sent her over the edge.

Monica had not been aware of it, would not have admitted it if you called her on it, but the first halfway decent boy who had made a move on her was going to win, because she was ready to fuck and be fucked. If she had been a female baboon her pussy would have been bright red and swollen five times its normal size.

Now here she was, naked on a bed with a naked boy and Monica was absolutely in heaven. She crawled over him, and he crawled all over her, for Jordan had never in his life been with a woman so completely beautiful and hot as Monica. He did not know what he'd done to deserve this (very little, in fact) but he was not going to miss any of it.

After a bit Jordan said, "I notice you haven't taken YOUR costume off."

"MY costume is so small you could hold all of it in your fist," Monica observed. "But you're right, fair is fair. I'll take my thong and bra off if you'll take your jockey shorts off."

"Fair enough," Jordan said. Truth to tell, his cock was really longing for some attention.

In a trice they were both naked. It was a longish trice because Monica had used copious amounts of glue to keep her nipples inside her bra top, and peeling the tiny triangles off was a slow, mildly painful process (it would have been a very painful process if done rapidly). When her breasts pulled free, her nipples were fully erect, and not just because she was sexually excited, though there was some of that.

Her thong bottom came off much more easily, but there were a few embarrassing strands of goo hanging from it to her leg for a second or two.

But she was naked, and she turned around and there it was. Jordan's cock. Monica had seen some pictures and she knew cocks stuck out when guys were horny, but she was still a little surprised to see Jordan's cock pointing straight up at his navel while he lay on the bad on his back, waiting for her.

"Oh, boy!" Monica said gleefully at the sight of it, She crawled over and looked at it. She reached out and held it and felt its warm and its strong pulse.

She looked back at Jordan. "Can I kiss it and play with it?" she asked.

"It's all yours," Jordan said, grinning. "Here. Put this on it if you want to put it anywhere other than your mouth."

He had handed her a condom.

"Good idea," said Monica, "but I've never used one of these."

"Nothing to it," said Jordan. "You just open the package, take out the little rolled-up thingie, put the rolled-up circle around my cock, and roll it down to the base as far as you can."

"OK," Monica said, glad she had opted to go on the pill. "I want to play with it before I put the condom on."

"Oh, I'm COMPLETELY OK with that," Jordan said. "Why don't you crawl on top of me and I'll play with you, too?"

"Seems fair," Monica said.

She crawled atop Jordan, facing away from him. He was over a head taller than her, so there was plenty of room. She examined his cock carefully. It was a very normal cock. It was circumcised, about six inches long and an inch and a half in diameter. The skin was pinkish brown, slightly redder than the rest of Jordan's untanned skin, but with veins clearly visible beneath it. There was a soft bag beneath the cock, which held Jason's balls. Pubic hair grew, not just around the ball sac, but from it. Monica hadn't known that. She hadn't even suspected it. The balls themselves were soft and squishy, but not disgustingly so.

Jordan's cock had a definite aroma, but not an unpleasant one, as Jordan had in fact showered that morning. (Lucky for him.)

Having explored his cock, feeling it was about as safe and clean as anything to be found in the lap of a teenage boy was ever going to be, Monica put it in her mouth and started sucking on it.

In very short order, this had a marked effect on Jordan. He started making strange noises. His whole body started jerking at the waist, apparently with the intent of getting his cock further into Monica's throat. Monica, who didn't feel like gagging on his cock, backed off. But she didn't stop because she was enjoying the effect she was having on Jordan. She sent a glance back to see him and he was staring back at her, his eyes glazed and his breath coming out in gasps. Monica thought for a moment there was something wrong with him, but then she remembered some of the stories she'd heard about the effect of oral sex on guys, and decided not to worry about him unless he exploded or something.

At which point Jordan exploded -- in Monica's mouth. Monica was genuinely startled by it, even though she'd heard stories from other girls. After a moment of confusion, she figured out what had happened and swallowed the stuff, licking Jordan's cock clean before it slid out of her mouth because she always thought that was so sexy. Icky, but sexy, like so much of actual sex as opposed to romance.

Jordan's cock then became very soft, very rapidly, while Jordan lay on his back and gasped heavily, like HE'D been the one doing all the sucking.

A glance around the room showed there was a stash of Jolt Colas in an ice chest in one corner. Monica didn't really want to be up all night ... then again, here she was naked in bed with a naked boy. What was the point of sleeping? Without bothering to ask Jordan's permission, she opened one and drank down several gulps, thus getting rid of the taste of Jordan's cum, which while it wasn't awful, wasn't exactly cafe mocha latte either.

Monica then climbed back on the bed and straddled Jordan's chest.

"Well, it's official," she said with a grin, "I suck. Now, what about you?"

"You suck wonderfully," Jordan said. "Now, give me a hit of that cola and I'll see what I can do for you." And he wiggled his tongue suggestively.

Monica grinned and handed Jordan the cola. He took a healthy swig, not an easy thing to do when you're lying on your back with someone sitting on your chest, then handed the can back to Monica. He looked up at her.

"All right, time to be a face cowgirl," said Jordan.

"What?" Monica asked.

"Scooch on up here and take a ride on my face, cowgirl," said Jordan, grinning.

Well, Jordan had to ask her twice, but he didn't need to ask a third time. Monica scooched on up and began rubbing her pussy gently against Jordan's face. She felt his tongue probing her pussy, enthusiastically, but not expertly, at least, he didn't seem to have a very clear idea where her clit was.

Still, she was rubbing her pussy on a boy's face, and it did feel very, very good, very quickly. It didn't just feel good, it was amazing. Monica was really rubbing her pussy on a real boy's face. She had fantasized about doing stuff like this so many times over the last few years, the fact that she was actually doing it with a real boy just made it so intense and powerful that she ... that she ... came in his face. Her whole body spasmed repeatedly as she ground her pussy against him again and again, and she just couldn't stop, and she must have been making noises because she was dimly aware that at some point Jordan reached up and popped her Slavegirl Belinda ballgag into her mouth. (Monica generally only wore it when posing, and not often then, since it made her drool if she kept it in for any length of time, and she didn't care to be photographed while drooling, plus it hindered talking.) But she could hardly be bothered with caring about being gagged one way or the other while she was in the middle of a series of freaking ORGASMS, and besides, she probably was making a hell of a lot of noise.

So she ground and she moaned and she finally collapsed to one side, orgasmed out.

As she lay there, staring blankly into space as the ecstatic aftershocks reverberated in her mind, drooling mindlessly onto the bed out of the corner of her gag, Jordan sat up and grabbed the condom where she had left it on the corner of the bed. Monica had not noticed that the sight of her rubbing her pussy in his face with her breasts bouncing wildly while she made orgasmic faces and sounds had given Jordan a huge stiffie again.

Jordan wrapped the condom over his cock. He wasn't really expert at it, but he had done it a few times, which was a few times more than Monica had.

Monica was lying on her side, almost face down, so once he had his condom on he just rolled her over to her stomach and pulled her hips into the air.

Monica had a fuzzy idea what Jordan was up to, but she felt so good she was OK with it. She braced her knees as she felt Jordan's cock probing at her pussy. There was a moment of mild discomfort as he pulled her vaginal lips apart and slid his cock between her inner labia, and carefully worked it inside her.

Monica made some mmphing noises into her ballgag. They came out a little burbled because of all the drooling she was doing, but somehow all the drooling seemed appropriate considering all the other messy sexual things that had been going on and were currently going on.

Monica's pussy was so wet from her orgasms that once Jordan's cock was past the outer labia it slid smoothly and easily in. Jordan pushed it all the way in, groaning with pleasure as he did so.

Monica groaned with pleasure too, as Jordan began working his cock in and out of Monica's pussy, at first slowly, but faster and faster. Thanks to his earlier orgasm and the condom he was wearing, he was having no trouble with premature ejaculations. Soon he was ramming it home to Monica with force and rhythm, and Monica had her face buried in the mattress and was moaning into her ballgag as a fresh set of orgasms coursed through her body. That was the way she lost her virginity, being taken doggie style by a boy she'd only met a few hours earlier, with a ballgag in her mouth, and she loved every minute of it.

She loved it so much that afterward, when they'd collapsed on the bed, she wrapped her arms around Jordan and kissed him tenderly and said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you. That was WONDERFUL!" And she meant every word of it.

Jordan stared down at her with his face suddenly broken into an almost idiotic grin of pleasure. For a moment, he was the hottest young stud on the planet, he totally believed it because of the way Monica thanked him, and because she was the hottest woman he'd ever heard of, hotter than he could have even conceived of a woman being a few minutes ago. And she'd just THANKED him for fucking her. Not dutifully, or anything like that, but enthusiastically. What the hell kind of woman was this?

"No," Jordan said, "Thank YOU. You are right, that was wonderful, but it was you who made it wonderful."

"We'll have to agree to disagree," Monica laughed.

Four or five hours later, Monica was awakened from a light sleep (she had only been asleep a few minutes) by repeated hammering on the door.

She got up and answered the door while Jordan lay on the bed in an oblivious stupor. She opened the door a crack and saw a gamer type in a disheveled T-shirt.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Hey, I'm Jordan's roommate Hal," said the guy. "I need to come in and crash."

"All right," Monica said after staring groggily for a moment. "Just give me a couple of minutes to get my things."

"'Kay," said Hal, also staring groggily. He'd been in a heavy D&D quest for the last day and a half and was kinda relieved when his character finally got killed. He was much sleepier than Monica.

There was a table lamp on in the corner -- they'd never actually turned out the lights -- and with its aid, Monica was able to find her discarded thong and bra top and hastily put them on. She got her slave bag and wrapped it around her neck. She realized that was all she'd brought with her or taken off in the room. She really was traveling light.

When she opened the door, Hal blinked, because to his sleepy eyes it looked like Monica was still naked. And of course, she was beautiful.

"Wow, you're beautiful," Hal said with the complete sincerity of someone whose brain was mostly not working.

Monica smiled at Hal. "Thank you," she said. She would have hugged Hal, but he had that "gamey" smell that gamers get, so she just headed down to the elevator lobby.

It was the wee hours of the morning, but there were still people to be seen sitting or wandering about in the mezzanine far below. There was no one on the elevator lobby on Jordan's floor, so Monica had the elevator to herself, which she was extremely glad of when the doors closed.

That was because the inner surface of the doors was reflective, a handy feature allowing business guests to check themselves out before going down to that Big Meeting.

What the doors showed Monica was that both of her nipples were peeking out from beneath her bra, one of them pretty much completely, the other just a bit, and her thong had ridden up so far in her crotch that not just her outer labia, but one of her inner labia was visible. Her hair was also a mess, one side of it bunched up in bed hair mode. There were also clearly visible seams on her skin where she had slept on wrinkled sheets.

She was the very portrait of a girl who'd just had her brains fucked out. Which was true. But the truth of it did not stop Monica from going into a frenzy of tidying up, and well before the elevator reached the mezzanine, her bra and thong had covered what they were supposed to cover. There was nothing much she could do for her bed hair but run her hands through her hair and try to get it balanced out, so she did that. She couldn't do anything at all about the sheet seam marks, so she did nothing.

The long walk back to her room, through three different hotel mezzanines, was relatively quiet, through some long connecting hallways that would have been spooky if they hadn't been so well lit and well stocked with hollow-eyed fen heading to or from their rooms. No one asked her for pics, probably because they were just as interested in getting to their rooms and getting some shut eye as Monica was.

Joanie was already asleep on her side of the bed when Monica got in. Monica didn't bother with her usual pre-sleep routine, she just took off her slave bag and collapsed.

When Monica woke up, she found a note from Joanie saying, "Sorry, had to go to costume contest prep meeting. Will go to posing area after."

One glance at the clock showed Monica that Joanie would be at the posing area. She showered and cleaned up, including a nice hair wash, since she smelled a lot like what she'd been doing for six hours last night.

She chose another thong and bra set from her suitcase. It had half a dozen of them, one for each day of the con and a couple of other "just in case."

She headed down to talk with Joanie. Just as yesterday, she was immediately caught up in the whirl of posing. Unlike yesterday, she was by now entirely used to posing and had no problem with it, and immediately started hugging and feeling up the cute boys. She also kept an eye out for Joanie, and soon spotted her amid a cluster of Dragon Wars cosplayers (Joanie was dressed as Lady Warrior Ho today.)

"Joanie!" Monica cried as soon as she finished with her pose, waving in Joanie's direction. Joanie waved back and the two of them hooked up. It was almost like two stars meeting with their entourages, with the Dragon Wars bunch and the usual collection of hopeful boys trailing Monica. (They would claim they were Slavegirl Belinda fans, but this wasn't much of an improvement over just saying they were hot for naked Monica, since being a fan of Slavegirl Belinda would earn a male fan a curled lip at the very least from ardently feminist fans.)

There was no way to talk normally with all those people around, so Joanie and Monica hugged each other and whispered into one another's ears, ignoring the spate of camera flashes at this lesbian-looking pose.

"So, how'd it go last night?" Joanie asked.

"About as good as it could have," Monica said. "I mean, I've read all this stuff about actually doing it, I've seen some videos and pictures, and I always thought the people who wrote about sex were exaggerating wildly, but I was wrong, they weren't even CLOSE to what the real thing is like, it's SO much better."

"Sounds like you had a good time," Joanie said.

"Oh, god yes," said Monica. "I'm only sorry there's only three days of con left."

"What's your plan for the con now?" asked Joanie.

"Well, yesterday was damn near perfect," said Monica, "so I plan to repeat it, but maybe with more dancing in the drum circle and more sex."

"I see," said Joanie. "Well, you take care of yourself."

"I will," said Monica, "and I plan to take care of a few boys, too."

* * *

It was about a month after SciFiFunCon, when Monica heard the words she knew she'd hear from her mother.

"Monica, come down to the living room, your father and I want to have a talk with you," Lisa's mother said in that soft tone that brooked no argument.

Monica came down to the living room, nervous despite the fact that she had anticipated this, was prepared for it, and knew she had a winning hand that her parents couldn't trump.

Jim and Lisa were sitting on the couch together, looking unhappy but resolved.

"Sit down, Monica," said Lisa. "We have something we need to show you."

Monica sat down in the chair indicated. Lisa picked up a CD player controller and pointed it at the TV set. Immediately the player started up a slideshow, of pictures of Monica at SciFiFunCon.

Jim and Lisa let a couple of dozen pictures flash on the screen before saying a word. Monica knew that if they wanted to, they could find hundreds, possibly thousands more pictures of her. Apparently, every horny guy with a camera at SciFiFunCon -- which was pretty much every guy at SciFiFunCon -- had taken pictures of Monica in her Slavegirl Belinda outfit. The ones taken of her while she'd been dancing in the drum circle -- and Monica had done a LOT of dancing in the drum circle over four days -- were particularly revealing. Monica had not consciously posed for those, but a lot of the poses her body assumed in the course of the dance looked like something out of a laddie mag shoot. What really amazed Monica was how good she looked in all the shots. Apparently, she'd reached that magic level that some women reached where they looked so good that they had to really work to look bad in a photo. Monica knew that was shallow, but she still really liked it.

"Care to explain these to us, young lady?" asked Jim.

"Sure," said Monica. "I decided to dress up as Slavegirl Belinda and go to SciFiFunCon and crawl all over cute boys and dance in the drum circle. It was HUGE fun."

"I wish you would have told us before you decided to go naked in public in front of thousands of people with cameras who habitually post on the Web!" Jim said angrily.

"Why, what would you have said?" Monica asked.

"We would have told you NOT to!" Jim cried.

"You know, I figured you would have," said Monica. "That's why I didn't bring it up."

Her parents stewed on that for a moment.

"All right, young lady, you are GROUNDED!" Jim said. "No more cons for you!" He was clearly furious.

Lisa shot Jim an annoyed glance. He had promised that he would remain calm during their discussion with Monica, but he was already flying off the handle. He'd been a lot worse when the school had called to say that someone was passing around naked pictures of Monica. He had first wanted to find the boy who was doing it and kill him. Then he wanted to find Monica and half-kill her. Then he wanted to ground Monica from ever doing anything fun. Lisa talked him down from all of this, but eventually she got frustrated herself and said, "Jim, Monica is our only daughter, and up until now we have had a great relationship with her, and if you do or say ANYTHING that fucks up that relationship, you are going to find yourself on the outs with your daughter AND your wife. Now do you want that?"

"What you're on her side?" Jim asked. "You want her dancing around naked in front of men all the time?"

"No, of course not," responded Lisa. "But you have to understand something, Jim. She's 18. We can't just order her around. If we really piss her off, she could go get an apartment by herself and become a pornstar and there wouldn't be a THING we could do about it."

"Maybe not legally," Jim said darkly.

"What the hell, Jim?" Lisa asked. "This isn't Saudi Arabia. And let me tell you, if you threaten violence against my daughter again in any way, you will lose not just your daughter, you'll lose your wife. I mean that."

This threat deflated Jim's bluster instantly. He realized he had gone too far and shut up.

Lisa sensed she had made her point and quickly moved to bring her husband back.

"Look, I know this is hard for you," she said. "It's hard for me, too. But we have to face facts. She's 18, a legal adult. We don't have the power to make her do what we want, just because we're her parents, any more. Remember Nancy Holcombe? Her parents must have gone through something very like this. They put their foot down, you saw how much good it did them. We can do better than they did, I know we can. We need to hang on to Monica. She needs us to hang onto her. So let's do what we have to do, even if that means letting her be a little wilder than we want her to be. Because if we lose her, she could wind up a LOT wilder than we want her to be."

Jim nodded. His wife was right, of course. Didn't change the red-hot sense of anger and betrayal that was coursing through his veins, but she was absolutely right.

That was why Jim, who was trying to remain calm, was a seething volcano of anger as he watched his daughter face their accusations without any sign of shame or remorse. If she would just break down and cry and beg for forgiveness, he'd be able to forgive her. But she didn't think she'd done anything wrong, and that angered Jim. She had done something wrong. She'd been too sexy in public.

"All right, if that's what you want," Monica said calmly. "No more cons." (To herself she added, "For a year," because she was well aware she would be in college in a year and her parents wouldn't be in a position to keep her out of cons ... or anywhere ... then.}

"And no more dancing for you!" Jim said.

"No, I think I will continue to dance," said Monica.

"That tears it!" Jim growled, prepared to give her the works for her obvious defiance of his edicts.

"Jim," Lisa said, her soft voice cutting through his bluster like a buzz saw. "Remember our discussion earlier? You are in serious danger of having just the problems I told you about. Why don't you just leave and let me handle it?"

"But ..." Jim said.

"Leave!" Lisa ordered. "Leave now, Jim, before you have two serious problems to deal with instead of just one."

Jim was not the most socially-skilled person in the world, but he was marginally more skilled than most programmers, and he recognized that he was out of his depth here and that if he opened his mouth he might well have the chance to regret it, often and for a long time. So he got up from the sofa and stalked off toward the stairs. But he couldn't resist one last chance to assert his fatherly authority over the situation, even though he was doing so in retreat.

"Not a fingah!" he cried, then stalked up the stairs, tromping heavily.

Monica looked at Lisa. It was obvious that mom was much more on her side than dad was, and that she held the upper hand over dad in this situation, as in most situations.

"Not a fingah?" Monica asked.

"I have no idea," Lisa said, quick to seize on the opportunity to calm things down. "Now I think we both know that Jim is a little upset by all this. He's really hurting, Monica. So let's agree to forget about what he's said so far. Agreed?"

"Sure," Monica said. Cons were back on the block, apparently. Worked for her.

"So, what exactly happened here?" asked Lisa. "Why are we suddenly looking at pictures of you running around pretty much naked at a con?"

"Well, I got to thinking about SciFiFunCon a few months ago," said Monica. "I was thinking about what kinds of costumes to wear, and I realized I could wear my dancing costume -- pretty much the costume I showed you and dad. But I thought about it more, and realized that with the way I look now, I could wear a MUCH sexier version of the belly dancing outfit, and I'd get a LOT more attention from boys. And I realized I could spend four whole days crawling all over cute boys while practically naked. That pretty much sealed the deal for me."

"So, what exactly did "crawling all over" entail?" Lisa asked. "Are we going to see more photos of you doing ... different things?"

"Oh, no," said Monica. "You don't have to worry about anything like that. I only posed for photographs while wearing my costume, and I made sure everything was where it should be before I posed. And I did make out with some boys, but I did it in their room or my room and there were no cameras." (Joanie's advice had been REALLY good, she thought.)

"When you say "make out" what did that entail?" Lisa asked.

"Oh, mostly groping each other and kissing," Monica said airily. "You don't have to worry -- I made sure I wouldn't get pregnant or get any STDs."

"Does that mean you didn't DO anything or that you took precautions?" asked Lisa.

"I took precautions," Monica replied. "Specifically, I'm on the pill, and all the guys wore condoms all the time."

Lisa paused for a moment, absorbing what Monica had told her. It was actually very good news. Many of the mothers in her neighborhood had heard far worse from their daughters. It was too much to expect of Monica to delay sex past 18 -- that had been the Holcombes' mistake. Monica was taking precautions, and making the boys take precautions, and that was about the best news she could realistically have hoped for.

"OK," Lisa said. "Let's just keep that between the two of us. I'm glad you told me, because I would have had trouble believing you weren't doing anything. But as far as Jim goes, you weren't doing anything at all beyond running around in a skimpy costume and dancing, right?"

"Sure," Monica responded.

"And we won't be confronted with any pictures that will disprove that, right?" Lisa said.

"Not that I know of," said Monica. "That is, I could have been secretly photographed or videotaped by some guy, but I don't think so because I didn't hang out with any guys who were assholes, and I am pretty good at detecting assholes."

"Good," said Lisa. "So, what do you want to do in the future, Monica? We had you figured for college, a degree, a career, that sort of thing. Is that what you want?"

"Yes," said Monica. "I haven't changed my plans really. What I'd like to do is complete this year of high school, go on to college, then see about a career, just as you say. But I also intend to continue dancing, because it makes me very happy. And it has been directly responsible for all that weight loss you were both so thrilled with until you saw those pictures from SciFiFunCon. I mean, chemistry hasn't become less interesting to me, and neither has having a career in it become less interesting to me. It's just that dancing and boys have become a LOT more interesting to me. And I don't see why I can't have both."

"Well, Monica, it's not so much your interest in boys or dancing that bothers us, it's the public nudity," said Lisa. "I'm sure that if you had just been dating boys at the con, and posing while wearing more clothes, we would never have been alarmed about it."

"OK, first of all, I WASN'T naked," said Monica. "I actually put glue inside my bra to make sure my nipples stayed in there."

"I'm pretty sure that was because the bra was so tiny that was the only way the nipples would stay in," Lisa said.

"Well, true, but the point is, it was there," said Monica. "So was my thong. I was not naked. I was pretty skimpily clothed, I will admit, but it was a valid Slavegirl Belinda costume."

Lisa stifled an impulse to vent some sarcasm at the thought that going to a con as Slavegirl Belinda, sniggeringly referred to as Naked Girl by some, was some kind of excuse for her behavior.

Instead she said, "OK, true, it was a Slavegirl Belinda costume and it kept you legally clothed within the very loose standards prevalent at SciFiFunCon. But still, Monica, you have to admit -- that costume covered maybe four or five square inches of your body, not counting the accessories. You were almost naked, and photographed hundreds of times in that state, sometimes while doing some downright obscene dancing."

"It was not obscene," Monica said.

Lisa silently grabbed the CD player controller and used the search feature to find the ninth image in the slideshow, in which an obviously male fan had photographed Lisa doing one of her pelvic thrusts from the rear. Her rear end was thrust out toward the viewer, and the thin strand of fabric running up between her butt cheeks and going over her hips appeared to be stretched nearly to the bursting point by her out-thrust ass, and also appeared to be the only piece of clothing on her body. At the same time, her arms were thrust out on either side of her body in the typically sinuous and graceful manner of bellydancers, and her head was tipped gracefully to one side.

It was obscene yet graceful, or gracefully obscene or obscenely graceful.

"I suppose you are going to tell me this is not obscene," Lisa said smugly.

"Yes, I am," Monica said firmly. "I mean, yes, it has some really strong sexual elements..."

"...By which you mean, your naked butt," Lisa said.

"...but there are elements of grace and joy there," Monica continued.

"Mm-hmm," Lisa said, her smugness even more pronounced.

Lisa's tone immediately reminded Monica of a little speech Madam Yasmina had once given her class.

"Belly dance is strong, sensuous and very feminine," said Madame Yasmina. "Being a very feminine form of dance, it naturally has strong elements of female sexuality within it. Many people, both male and female, cannot abide this. If there is any element of sexuality in the dance, they will focus on it to the exclusion of everything else. Men will typically think the dance is only about sex, and approve of it for that reason, but also think of you as strippers or whores for that reason. Many women will disapprove of the dance for that reason, and will also think of you as nothing but strippers or whores. When you encounter them, your instinct will be to reason with them, to help them see all the beauty to be found in belly dancing. Let me advise you from the perspective of one who has been involved with belly dancing for many years -- don't bother reasoning with them. You can't do it. Such attitudes always spring from a stunted sexuality that no amount of mere speech can change. You may disagree with such creatures, but you will never change them. Your best bet is just to deal with them as best you can and spend your energies in areas that will be more productive."

Monica realized in an instant that her mother was one such creature, who would never understand belly dance for what it was. Probably her father was, too. Maybe in a few years they would understand, but this was not an argument she could win.

"OK, you feel it's obscene," Monica said. "I don't, but I understand that you do. I still like the way I look even when I am being what you call obscene. I'm not willing to give it up, any more than I'm willing to give boys up."

"I guess I don't really need you to give up the dancing," said Lisa. "Jim really wants you to, because he blames your behavior on the dancing, but I think I can talk him out of it. What really bothers us is the nudity. Could you possibly wear more clothing when you go to cons? At the very least, when you are in public and people are photographing you?"

"Why?" Monica asked. "What difference does it make? The photos of me in that Slavegirl Belinda costume are all over the Web, and the convention has already been over for a month. In another couple of months, there will be a LOT more photos. It's not like me appearing wearing more clothes in other conventions are going to make me look any less naked in my SciFiFunCon photos, which is by far the biggest con I generally go to. But that might change soon. I've been offered a gig, but I thought I'd get your input on it before agreeing to it."

"What?" Lisa asked. Had the white slavers that lurked in every girl's parents' imaginations already gotten to Monica?

"Yeah, the guys who publish the Slavegirl Belinda comics on the Web saw my pictures and they want me to model for them and go to cons in the Slavegirl Belinda outfit and hang out in their booth and get photographed with fans."

"Ah," said Lisa. "Well, that brings up the real problem that Jim and I have with your running around almost naked at SciFiFunCon. You see, when you make choices in life, those choices tend to lead to other choices, and if you just take one choice after another, you can easily wind up doing things you never really wanted to do."

"I want to be a model for Slavegirl Belinda comics, Mom," Monica said firmly.

"Sure you do," said Lisa. "And you know, being a model for Slavegirl Belinda comics isn't really a bad thing compared to a lot of the things you COULD be doing. But the thing that bothers your father and I is the thought that other people are going to be making offers to you. And as you said, there are hundreds of pictures of you practically naked on the Web now, so they'll want you to model naked, and not because your character runs around almost naked, but just because you look wonderful naked to men. And they'll want you to model naked while having sex, too. They'll offer you a lot of money to do that. I know you don't think you'll be taking all those offers, but nobody starts out thinking they will. They just get used to modeling half naked, then they get used to modeling naked, and after a time they get used to modeling while some boy has his cock in them. I know you think you're smarter than other girls, and you are, but I still don't think you have enough perspective to understand what kind of danger this public nakedness represents."

"Well, there's a classic slippery slope argument for you," said Monica. "I have actually thought about this a bit. What I came up with this -- at the con, all I did was give out my first name. In fact, on some of the photos you can see my con badge and all it says on it is "Monica." My plan is to model using the name "Li'l Monica" as my nom de modellage, which means I'll still be pretty much anonymous at college. The near-nudity won't hurt me, and I won't be photographed really, really naked, so that won't hurt me either."

"Not if your face is plastered all over those Slavegirl Belinda comics," Lisa said.

"Mom, it's a web comic," Monica said. "I mean, we're talking really obscure."

"I know about them," Lisa said.

"Yeah, and you also used to attend SciFiFunCon," said Monica. "I'll bet almost every single adult you ever talk to has no idea what SciFiFunCon is, and a tiny percentage of those would know who Slavegirl Belinda is. We're talking obscure, Mom, really, really obscure."

"You have a point," said Lisa. "Except, look at how fast those pictures of you traveled around your school. Why should college, and someday, work be any different?"

"I don't expect that it will be, but I don't expect that it'll be a problem," said Monica. "Look at Mrs. Chilton down the street. Everybody knows she did amateur sex tapes when she was younger, I mean, hardcore stuff. But she still has a job, and she's still married and all that. Or there's Mrs. George down the street, who got stark naked in a Girls Gone Wild video and kissed and groped some other woman, and she's still married and she has a job. This isn't the 1980s."

"Yes, but who might they be married to, and what jobs might they have if they hadn't done those things?" Lisa asked.

"That's a very good question," said Monica, "but pretty meaningless. It's like asking who I would be if you had married someone other than dad. Someone else, obviously, but for better or for worse, there's no way to tell."

Lisa started to say something, but she couldn't think of a good comeback. Apparently, the same hormones that had given her those breasts had cranked up her intelligence, too.

"Look, mom, I'm sure you and dad are thinking about Nancy Holcombe here," said Monica. "So have I. And the thing is, I don't think the problems they had were just Nancy's hormones destroying an innocent family. I think a large part of the problem was they way her parents framed the situation: she could have fun with boys or she could be their daughter, but she couldn't do both. You know that. Now, I love you and dad and I want to stay on good terms with you, but I love boys, too. And I'm still interested in chemistry and a career. I don't see why boys means no parents, no chemistry, no career. It's bullshit, everybody has a love life. And don't tell me I'm not being discreet enough or choosy enough. You know that I haven't been dating at all for this past six months, and believe me, I've had plenty of offers for dates."

"We are OK with you dating," Lisa said.

"Well, I'M not, at least, not the boys at McFarland High," said Monica. "They're either unbearably dull or assholes. And socially, the place is a fishbowl. Anybody you go out with is the subject of endless gossip, and so is anybody you turn down for a date. I know what people think of me -- they used to think I was a fat loser. Now they think I'm a stuck up bitch who won't date anybody. Now that that anime club asshole printed up those pictures of me, I'll be a slutty stuck up bitch. Believe me, there's no way to win with that bunch, because they're all so insular. I want no part of it. I think that's smart of me. I want to go to cons and play with the guys at cons because, for the most part, what happens at cons stays at cons. I don't mind pics of me in skimpy costumes showing up at school -- let them ogle me, in a year, I won't be there any more. I'll be at college, where there will be more boys, and smarter boys for the most part. Some of them will be assholes, but some of them won't. I'll probably date in college just because there'll be boys I want to date there, and for that reason, I'll lose interest in cons. Well, some interest, maybe a lot of interest. I'll still be interested in doing well in school, because if I don't, dating boys or being sexy with boys will become an alternative occupation for me, and therefore it'll be an obligation, and I don't want that. I want to hang out with the boys I like just because I like them, not because I'm thinking about getting one with good prospects to marry me. I mean, maybe I will marry a boy with good prospects someday, but it won't be because he has good prospects, it'll be because I love him for who he is. And even if I do marry and start having kids, I plan to have that degree to fall back on. Now, don't tell me that this isn't pretty close to what you want for me, because it is. You just don't like the sexy naked dancing. Well, that's really just a side issue, you should just think about the important stuff, like I have."

"OK," Lisa said. "You know, I used to be young like you, so I understand your feelings, and I can deal with your plan for your life. But you know, the fathers of girls often get very protective of their children, and that has happened with Jim. I think the reason the pictures bother him so much is that he sees them as evidence that he is losing you, his little girl, whom he has loved and protected since she was a baby. But those pictures are strong proof that you are a woman now. Having them come out of the blue has really affected him."

"Come on, out of the blue?" Monica asked. "I remember you two sitting down and telling me that I was beautiful and that some boys would say and do almost anything to get me to have sex with them. You were completely right on that one, by the way. You knew my body was developing, that boys were interested in me, and that I was taking belly dancing lessons -- it never occurred to you that I might want to dance in sexy ways for boys?"

"Well, I thought you might want to dance sexily for boys in private, not in public," said Lisa. "After all, that's why a lot of older women go to those classes. I think Jim was just hoping it was a phase, like your pottery classes and your anime collecting."

"So, you're OK with me," Monica said. "And dad doesn't really have to worry about losing me -- I don't want to lose him over this. Would it help if I told him so?"

"Yes," Lisa said, "it would help a lot. But you know, be subtle. I think if you would just spend some time with him, and reassure him about your feelings, he'd get over this very fast."

"OK, I'll do that," Monica said. "Are we in agreement?"

"Sure," said Lisa, "so long as you'll promise me you won't do anything really naked on camera, or anything hardcore."

"No problem, mom," said Monica. "It's not in my plan."

"And promise me that you'll tell me before you spring any SciFiFunCon-ish surprises on us," said Lisa. "I can handle it, and maybe you and I can work together to prepare Jim so he doesn't go nuts."

"All right, so long as you can promise me that you won't automatically forbid me from doing whatever it is I'm planning," said Monica.

"Well, I can't tell you that we'll be OK with anything you do if you tell us about it first," said Lisa.

"That's OK," said Monica, "I don't expect that. What if we just agree that anything I do that is likely to seem like it's a step beyond anything I've done at this last SciFiFunCon, I'll tell you about? And of course, anything having to do with going into business and signing contracts and stuff, like the comic modeling gig," said Monica. "I'd appreciate your advice there."

"You'll have it, whether you appreciate it or not," said Lisa. "OK, so you tell me about anything you want to do that might be beyond what you did at SciFiFunCon, and I'll think hard about it and not reject it out of hand. And you'll tell me about any business deals anyone wants to set up with you. If you're serious about this, though, you'll always tell me about it before you sign anything. We told you about this on your birthday -- you're a legal adult now, and when you sign a contract, it's legally binding."

"Sure," Monica said.

"OK, there's one other thing I want you to think about -- sex," Lisa said. "I'm very glad you're taking precautions about sex. And I'm sure you've heard this before, but it's really important -- all you have to do is make one mistake with regard to sex, and your life could change forever. Pregnancy is like that."

"O-kay," said Monica. "I'll be very careful, and I'll see that guys are, too. Most guys at cons are barely sexual anyway -- I expect I popped a few cherries besides my own at SciFiFunCon, and I'm looking forward to popping a few more."

Lisa looked wistfully sad for a moment.

"What's the matter, Mom?" said Monica.

"I'm just remembering a time when I felt like that myself," Lisa said.

* * *

The rest, of course, is history. History that I know, and you don't. Will Monica model for Slavegirl Belinda Comics? How far can Monica go with this thing of running around naked at Cons and smooging on boys? How far can she ride this Slavegiril Belinda thing? How far is she willing to ride it? Are there movies in Monica's future? B-movies? A-movies? Porn? How will her newfound popularity affect her relationship with her parents? With Joanie? Will she wind up with a steady guy or continue making it with boys randomly at Cons? What about her college plans? How does studying molecular biology jibe with having photos and videos of you dancing practically naked all over the Web? What is going to happen next?

I know I called this A Little Bit O' Monica, and some might think it's because of a certain song. I'll neither confirm nor deny that. But I will say there's a whole lot of Monica left to go.

-- The End

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