Stumbling backward with the blouse in her hands, Katie had a brief feeling of triumph at having won the tug-of-war, and was relieved to have at least one piece of clothing left; the blouse was fairly long, giving her some hope that it might provide enough cover to get by with, at least long enough to find a shop in the terminal where she could buy replacements for the rest of her work outfit. “Maybe if I can get out there quickly I can find the thief,” she thought, shaking out the much-abused blouse.
Katie got her arms in the sleeves and began buttoning the blouse up, starting at the bottom. She got the lowest button in place easily, but had a problem with the next one higher. The problem was simple but impossible to solve; the button was gone, with nothing but some loose threads to show where it had been. One missing button would have been tolerable, but Katie now saw that she’d already fastened all the buttons still attached to the blouse. “I guess pulling it through that tight gap wasn’t such a good idea,” she thought ruefully. “How am I supposed to get out of here now? I can’t be walking around in Terminal C dressed like this!”
Leaving the privacy of the stall in her current state was unthinkable, but it took Katie only a minute or two to accept the inevitability of doing exactly that. “What other choice do I have, really,” she wondered, already starting to blush. She tugged the blouse’s tails down to cover her pussy and butt as well as she could, then slung her bag over her left shoulder and pulled it across the open front of her blouse. Taking a deep breath before opening the stall door, she scanned the space one last time, as if she might somehow have just overlooked her suitcase. She stepped out of the stall and headed out of the room.
Pausing to study her reflection at a full-length mirror just outside the Ladies’ room, Katie was horrified to see damage to her blouse she hadn’t noticed in her rush to put it on. There was no way to know whether she or the thief was responsible, but one of them had apparently tried using one of the pockets to hang on to the blouse. The strain had pulled the pocket almost completely off and torn the fabric underneath at the top and both sides of the pocket’s original location, putting most of her right breast on display! She quickly shifted her bag to cover the gap her right nipple was peeking out from, holding it in place with her right hand while using her left hand to hold the front more or less closed.
Once she’d made what adjustments she could to avoid flashing the crowds of people streaming through the terminal, Katie set out for a women’s clothing store she’d noticed on a directory sign when she had been looking for somewhere to change. As she walked, she became aware of people staring at her. “Fair enough,” she thought, “Even without my right boob playing peek-a-boo, I must look like a refugee from a strip club on amateur night!” She knew walking around with one leg bare and the other clad in a thigh-high stocking probably made the gawkers all the more curious, but knowing how much she’d end up showing them if she were to try removing it then and there, she decided to live with the unusual look.
Katie had almost reached the clothing store when she heard a voice behind her shouting, “Miss! Please stop, I need to talk with you!” She ignored the voice at first, but couldn’t ignore the police officer when he caught up with her and repeated his request. She hadn’t even thought about this sort of trouble before, but now guessed someone might have called in to report her unusual behavior. “Where are the rest of your clothes? Are you okay?”
Katie told the officer how she’d come to be practically naked, apologizing more than once even though it hadn’t been her idea. “I’m just trying to get to the Johnston & Murphy store up ahead and buy myself something more appropriate.”
“Well, that does sound like a good idea, but they won’t be open for an hour or two,” the policeman chuckled, “I think you’d better come with me to our office, we have some disposable rain ponchos. Not too stylish, but better than what you’ve got going on right now!”
“Okay, sure,” she replied, still adjusting to the store not being open. “Of course it’s not open yet,” she thought, “it’s only 7:20.” A plastic poncho would be an improvement over what she was dressed in, but wasn’t going to work for going to the Capitol. She walked alongside the policeman, trying to imagine how she was going to explain her morning to her supervisors. The sound of the officer’s radio disturbed her as she tried to picture the reaction the Congressman’s staff might have to her showing up dressed either as she was or wearing a plastic police poncho. Neither option seemed very promising.
The flurry of transmissions on the policeman’s radio about a passenger creating a disturbance at gate 43 made him stop in his tracks. “Stay here, I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said before turning and running towards the disturbance. Katie did as she was told, but after five minutes had gone by she wondered if she should take another stab at finding some clothes she could go to work in; she remembered seeing a line of cabs just outside a nearby entrance and consulted Google maps to see if it might still be possible to make it to work somewhere near on time.
The two trips she looked up looked like, incredibly, she might be able to get where she needed to be well before the 9:00 AM gathering time. She was understandably nervous about venturing out into the world with her minimal attire, but the idea that she might be able to make it to work was enough to get her out the door and in line to catch a cab. Less than three minutes later she was telling her driver her destination, a Target less than 10 minutes away. Despite the rush hour traffic, the driver got her there in the same time Google listed.