Sissy Shopping Nightmare - Part 3 of 4

 

Sissy Shopping Nightmare

By Karen Singer

 

Part 3 of 4

 

Once his old clothes were discarded, along with any dignity he might have once had, he wandered slowly out of the food court.  As expected, his phone dinged again.  The message simply said:  See how pretty?  It was the picture though that concerned him the most.  The picture was of him walking through the food court, wearing the dress.  He really, really wanted to throw that phone at someone.  He looked all around, but still couldn’t figure out who might be watching him…other than everyone in the mall.

Once again his phone dinging made him cringe.  What now?  He read the message and couldn’t believe it.  The picture accompanying it didn’t even matter.  It was all…ridiculous!  Stupid!  And…unnerving.

The message read:  Go to the drug store on the bottom level and buy a package of adult diapers.  The picture of course was of a package of diapers.

 

 

He was wearing a dress.  He was wearing little girl shoes and socks.  He was wearing a bra.  Now…diapers?  It was too much!  Way too much!  At least they had told him where to find the damn things.  He trudged himself downstairs while it seemed like every person in the mall was looking at him.  He went into the drug store and had to look around to find the damn things.  There!  The easiest thing to find yet…except for maybe the damn bra he was wearing.

“Lovely dress,” the woman at the cash register said as she laughed at the sight of him.  He was tempted to hit her too, but he didn’t.  He simply walked out of the store with a large bag that contained the package of diapers.  At least they were in a bag, but he knew for sure now what would happen next.  Just a few steps out of the store, the phone dinged again and he dug it out of the little girl purse.  Yeah.  No surprise.  Back to the same men’s room in the food court, and put one of the damn diapers on.  And whoever had sent the message had emphasized that he couldn’t pee until he was wearing the diaper.

He didn’t want to do it.  He really didn’t want to do it.  But then, he didn’t want to wear anything of what he had on.  None of it.  Someone was really, really sick!  What was the purpose of all this anyway?  What had his son Jimmy done?  He had no clue, and no answers.  And the food court was so far away from the damn pharmacy.  It was a long humiliating walk, wearing a very noticeable and embarrassing dress, carrying a large heavy package, and of course his cat purse.

Doing his best to ignore the looks from everyone in the mall, he walked into the men’s room again.  Just going in made his need to pee grow that much worse.  It was getting difficult, but he held it.  Once again he went into one of the stalls and closed the door.  He opened the package of diapers and pulled one out…and stopped.  He couldn’t.  He just couldn’t!  It was too much.  All of it was to much.  What had Jimmy done?  But the images in his mind of what they had already done to Jimmy were simply beyond imagining.  Right there and then, he began crying.  His body slipped down until he was sitting on the floor with his back up against the wall of the stall.  He could do nothing but sit there…and cry.  Why did they have to hurt his son?  Why?  And why did they have to do this to him?

He had been sitting and crying for some time when his phone signaled another text message.  He almost ignored it, but he dug into his purse to pull the phone out anyway.  He read the message:  It looks like you’re getting the picture now, but no more lollygagging in there.  You’ve got five minutes to get that diaper on and get out of there or your son is going to get hurt.  Five minutes…and I’ve already started the timer.

Five minutes?  He needed to move.  He needed to…  But he couldn’t.  It was all too much!  It would be too much for anyone.  He sat there and started crying all over again.

He didn’t know how long he sat there before the phone dinged again.  There was just a very short message:  Five minutes again.  This time instead of a picture, he found a video.  He watched in absolute horror as someone took a pair of pliers to the little finger on Jimmy’s hand, and with a sickening sudden twist, and a loud snap, Jimmy started screaming his head off in pain.  Jimmy’s finger was broken and left at an impossible angle.  And then the pliers moved to his next finger before the video ended.

No!  No!  They had hurt Jimmy even worse.  They didn’t need to do that!  Why?  Why?  Why?  Sobbing, he forced himself to his feet.  He pulled his underwear off under his dress.  The diaper was a bit difficult to figure out, but he finally managed it.  With tears still streaming down his face, he hurried out of the stall and hurried out past everyone in the bathroom.  All the way out into the food court, where his damn phone sounded off again.

With the big bag of diapers in his hand, he had to stop and put the bag down so he could dig the phone out of his cat purse.  He read the message:  Throw your old underwear in the trash but keep the diapers, then pull up the hem of your dress and turn around slowly in a complete circle so the watchers can all see your diaper.  Wet yourself first if you can.  Otherwise, you’ll be doing the same thing later to show what you did.  You may be doing it later anyway.

Now they wanted him to wet his diaper like…  Damn he hated this.  He needed to pee.  There was no doubt about that.  Not after spending so much time right next to a toilet in the men’s room.

He did his best to soak his diaper.  It wasn’t easy, but he managed it.  As he stood there, he felt an entire warm lake beginning to form on the inside of his diaper.  He was amazed that the thing didn’t leak.  When it was over, he took a hesitant step, then another.  He chanced walking carefully over to the trash can where he dug his old underwear out of the bag and threw it into the trash.  He now had literally nothing left of what he had been wearing when he had arrived.  Nothing!

As instructed.  He lifted the hem of his dress and slowly turned in a complete circle.  People were watching him and laughing at him from everywhere.  It was impossible to tell who the watchers might be, other than literally everyone in the mall.  That’s who was watching him.  Everyone!

Red faced and full of shame, he let go of the hem of his dress and picked up the bag that contained the diapers.  He took a step away from the food court, then another.  The flood inside his diaper had mostly disappeared, but he could easily feel how much thicker his diaper was now.  He could also feel it sagging a bit between his legs.  He stopped as the realization hit him.  Everyone would now be able to see the diaper below the hem of his dress.  Shit!  Things just kept getting worse and worse.

His phone dinged again and he stopped so he could read the next bit of bad news…although he knew there was nothing they could do to him that would matter anymore.  The only thing that mattered was to keep Jimmy from getting hurt worse than he already was.  It was the same game he had been playing all day now.  But they had proven that they wouldn’t hesitate in the least to dish out more punishment if he didn’t comply immediately.

He stared at the new message and the picture that accompanied it.  Oh joy.  The message read:  Go back to the pharmacy and buy this nail polish.  He looked at the picture.  Yeah, it would be.  The polish appeared to be sparkly pink.  Probably something a young girl would choose instead of an adult.

 

 

He felt like he was walking most of the length of the mall once again as he made his way back to the pharmacy.  As he walked, there was no missing the feel of his soaked and sagging diaper.  There was also no missing the fact that everyone in the mall was looking at him.  The dress he was wearing was enough of a statement to make sure of it.  He did his best to ignore everyone in the mall.  He had little choice in that.

Ten minutes after walking into the pharmacy, he was heading back to the food court with new instructions:  Go back to the food court, sit at a table, and polish your nails.  Two coats.  Don’t mess it up and make sure it’s dry before you do anything else.

Yeah right.  No surprise.  And of course, he would be stuck painting his nails in front of everyone in the world.  Or close to it.

He wasn’t walking fast anymore.  He just couldn’t.  He was too unhappy.  Too ashamed.  The lunch hour was mostly over but there were still a lot of people in the food court.  He chose a table and sat down.  He set his cat purse on the table along with his bag of diapers.  He removed the nail polish from the small bag the pharmacy had put it in.  He looked at it.  Yeah, it was still just as sparkly pink as it  was in the store before he bought it.

He shook the bottle then removed the cap and looked at the applicator brush.  He had to be careful not to drip the polish on the table.  Hating what he was about to do, he wiped some of the polish on the brush back into the bottle, then spread the fingers of his left hand out on the table, and brushed the polish on his thumb nail.  Sparkly pink.  Very sparkly pink.  Even with just that much, nobody in the world could miss it.  He kept going, finishing the entire large nail.  Just looking at it made him feel squeamish.  Not wanting Jimmy to get hurt, he kept going.  On to the next finger and eventually on to his other hand.

After two coats, he carefully screwed the cap back onto the bottle and kept his fingers spread wide on the table.  How long did it take for nail polish to dry?  His fingernails looked just as wet now as when he had applied the stuff.  He glanced at the clock, then decided to give it fifteen minutes.  When the time was up, he gingerly touched his finger to one of the nails.  Nothing happened.  He was hoping it was dry.

Still trying to be careful in case his hands weren’t completely dry, he stuck the nail polish into his cat purse, got up, and threw the small bag it had come in into the trash.  He went back to the table to get his things, and his phone rang.  Were the damn messages never going to end?  He guessed no.  Not until they picked him up tonight.  Would they let him go home then?  More importantly, how about Jimmy?  After breaking his finger, Jimmy needed a hospital more than ever.

Still being careful of the polish on his nails, he dug the phone out of his silly purse.  The message and accompanying picture were easy to find.  What they wanted wasn’t easy to stomach:  Go to Fey’s Fine Jewelry.  Ask for Fey.  The message was bad enough, but the picture told the rest of the story.  The picture showed a pair of pink stud earrings.

 

 

Where the heck was Fey’s Fine Jewelry?  Probably as far from the food court as they could put it.

The walk turned out to be another long one, probably purposely, just to put him on display in front of as many people as possible.  Fey turned out to be an older woman who made it plain right from the start that she didn’t like him.  Bruce wondered what they had told her about him.  He himself wanted to know what someone’s problem with him was.

“Come along,” Fey told him briskly.  A few minutes later, not Fey, but another woman was installing pink stud earrings into his freshly pierced ears.  When they showed him the earrings, he recognized them as a perfect match to the ones in the picture.  After the earrings were in, he got to look in the mirror.  Yeah.  Pink sparkles.  Pink, pink, on top of pink.  Little girl pink.

  He considered himself lucky that the bill for the jewelry wasn’t as much as he thought it would be.  He was simply glad to get out of there, but not glad when he remembered that his phone would probably ring soon with another message for him.

 

Sissy Shopping Nightmare - Part 2 of 4

 

Sissy Shopping Nightmare

By Karen Singer

 

Part 2 of 4

 

Not knowing what else to do, Bruce wandered slowly toward the center of the mall.  Two minutes later, another message came in on his phone  A message with another picture.  He didn’t need the message to tell him what he needed to do.  That much was already obvious.  In fact, it had been obvious from the moment he had started looking for the socks.  The picture that came into his phone was a picture of a pair of shoes.  Black shiny shoes with a rounded toe and two straps that went across.  Shoes that looked like they would be perfect for a little girl, even though he already knew they would have to fit him.  Which meant that even though the shoes looked like they would be for a little girl, the shoes he had to find would actually be adult women’s shoes.  The short message said:  This EXACT pair.  Not something that looks like them.  We’ll know the difference.

 

 

The exact pair.  That didn’t sound good.  He realized immediately that he needed a shoe store.  But wait, didn’t the department stores sell shoes too?  Once again he turned around and headed back into the department store he had just left.

No, no, no!  Why did finding everything have to be so damn difficult?  He had checked each of the four major department stores attached to the mall and hadn’t found what he was looking for.  Oh, he found a lot of shoes that were similar, but not that exact pair.  They always had either a higher heel or the toe was pointed, or they only had one strap instead of two, or they weren’t shiny in the least.  And as a man looking so carefully through all of the women’s shoes, it had been a somewhat embarrassing task…let alone a man carrying a little girl purse in his hands.  So that left him now searching for the shoe stores in the mall that weren’t the big department stores.  No, they couldn’t make this easy for him at all, could they.  He went into two different shoe stores before he finally found the shoes he needed.

Once he found them though, he was faced with a new problem.  They were going to make him wear the stupid things.  The moment he stepped out into the concourse with the shoes in a bag, his phone dinged again and he read the message.  Yup.  No surprise.  Hating himself, hating the people forcing him to do this more than ever, he sat on a bench and removed his shoes.  He stuck the left little girl style shoe onto his foot and buckled it…to the scrutiny of all the people walking by, who also saw what kind of socks he was wearing.  The people who watched him buckling the right shoe onto his foot seemed to be watching even closer.    When he stood up and looked down, he could no longer see the embarrassing frills on his socks anymore, but the white socks stood out in stark contrast to the shiny black of his shoes, seeming to make them more obvious than they already were.

Knowing for certain that he was being watched closely, as per his instructions, his male shoes went into the trash along with the bags and the box from the shoes.  He felt like more of a fool than ever with his little girl purse, and now little girl shoes and socks on his feet.  What would be next?  He was afraid to find out, even though he was sure that whatever they wanted next, it would be something else that looked like it might belong to a little girl.

Stupid.  It was all stupid.  And very, very embarrassing.  Why were they making him do this?  It made no sense at all!

The moment his hands were empty the next message came in.  This one was far different from the previous messages.  Yes, there was a picture.  An embarrassing picture, but this message actually specified what store he needed to go to, and what to do once he got there.  The message read:  Go to Fine Feminine Foundations.  Ask for Claire.  She’ll tell you what to do.  The picture of course, was of a bra.

 

 

He was sure he had passed the store somewhere, but he didn’t remember where.  He walked around until he found a mall directory.  There.  Shit!  It was practically on the other side of the mall.  Turning his steps in that direction, and hating what was in store for him, he hurried as quickly as he could to the specified women’s lingerie store.  Going inside, he noticed a few women in the shop.  He found the cash register and asked for Claire.  The woman he asked seemed to look him over carefully with a rather distasteful look on her face.  “Just a minute,” she finally told him.  A few moments later, a woman approached him.

“So you’re the monster,” she said as she walked up to him and stared him in the face.

“Monster?  What are you talking about?”

“You!”

“What did I do?”

“As if you don’t know.  You…and your damn son.  You both should be hung.”

“What?  What did I do?” he demanded.

“Shit!” she replied.  “Come along.”  She turned and walked away.

“What did I do?  I don’t know!” Bruce argued.  He got no answer from the woman at all.

She led him into a tiny room and had him remove his shirt.  In moments, she was measuring his chest.  No matter how much he tried to get her to tell him anything at all, the woman remained silent.  She left him in the room, then came back a few minutes later and fastened a pink frilly woman’s bra around his chest.  She carefully tightened all the straps.  Bruce noticed that even though the inside of the bra cups were empty, they were still stiff enough to stand out from his chest.  At least they didn’t appear to be large.  In fact, they were surprisingly small.

The woman had him put his shirt on.  Buttoning it up was weird with the breasts now underneath.  In fact, he was lucky he could button it over top of the new breasts he appeared to have.

As soon as he was dressed, she led him out to the cash register where he again had to reach into his little girl cat purse and pull his wallet out.  Two minutes later, he was back out in the mall concourse, this time with the little girl cat purse in his hand, shiny little girl shoes on his feet with frilly white socks, and now his chest looked like he had breasts under his shirt.

How much more of this stupidity were they going to pile on him?

Just a few seconds out of the store, his phone dinged again.  He’d really like to take the thing and break it.  Instead, he checked the message.  Shit!  Shit!  Shit!  The message said:  Find it and buy one in size 12.  Better hurry.  You’re falling behind.  Would you like a video of us hurting Jimmy to get you moving faster? 

 

The picture was of a white dress with pink flowers on it.  He was sure it was made for a woman, but it still looked like something a little girl might wear.  But his bigger problem was that if he didn’t hurry, they would hurt Jimmy again.  He began to run.  Where should he look first?  There.  A women’s clothing store.

Running with a purse in his hand was strange.  Especially that purse.  Running made more people notice him.  But still, he couldn’t let them hurt his son.  They had already done enough to him.

So…many…women’s clothes!  So many dresses!  There were thousands of them.  How was he supposed to find the right one?  It was impossible!  Purse in hand, he literally ran from store to store, searching desperately, and very much afraid that in his haste he had missed it.  What would he do then?  What would they do to Jimmy?  Hurt him?  Or kill him?  Either…or both.

Desperate, he ran into another of the big department stores, and right into the women’s section.  His eyes fell on a mannequin.  It was wearing the same exact dress.  Finally!  He found a rack of them and easily found one that said size twelve on the label.  He pulled it out and rushed with it to the checkout.

His rushing caught the attention of too many people, but it couldn’t be helped.  The checkout woman said nothing, but she certainly gave him a lot of strange looks as he paid for the dress.  As soon as possible, he was hurrying as fast as he could out to the concourse again.  It had taken him forever to find that dress.  Had they hurt his son again?  He could only pray that they hadn’t.

The phone dinged the moment he left the store, more proof that he was being watched.  He briefly looked around but couldn’t tell who it might be.  There were literally too many people looking at him.

He checked the new message on his phone.  No picture this time, just words:  Take your pretty new dress to the men’s room by the food court and put it on.  DON’T pee in there.  Someone is already there waiting to watch to make sure you don’t.  More when you get out.

Ugh!  He had been afraid they were going to make him wear the stupid thing.  Now he had proof.  The men’s room by the food court.  Where the heck was that again?  He had only passed it at least six times today already.  Was there a men’s room there?  And he couldn’t even pee when he got there because someone would be watching while he was in there?  Did they want to watch him putting the dress on too?  Although if he did put the dress on, whoever it was wouldn’t be able to miss it if they tried since he would have to walk out of there too.

Growing tired from all his rushing around, he hurried toward the food court.  The men’s room was easy to find.  It was also somewhat crowded since it was lunchtime already.  Having to search to find everything had taken him hours.

Really not wanting to do it, he went into one of the stalls.  He leaned back against the wall of the stall for just a moment to breathe a bit.  This was so hard, and it was getting worse.  But Jimmy.  He was doing all of this just for Jimmy.  What had Jimmy done that was so bad?  What had Jimmy done that his son hadn’t told him about?  Whatever it had been, it must have been awfully bad.  His son?  His Jimmy?  He still found it hard to believe.  He also found it hard to believe that he was actually going to put the dress on and wear it, not only out of the stall he was in, but all over the stupid friggin mall!

Before removing his clothes, he glanced down at the toilet.  Yeah, he could pee.  In fact, the more he looked at the toilet the more he felt like he needed to pee.  But the instructions…and someone was out there close enough to hear him if he did.  Sighing and wanting to punch someone from the frustration of it all, he began removing his pants.  His shirt went next.  He pulled the dress from the bag and pulled hard on the tags to break the plastic holding them to the dress.

He unzipped the back of it and stepped into it.  He pulled it up his body.  He realized the dress had two layers.  A thick white inner layer that couldn’t be seen through, and a white gauzy outer layer that was semi-transparent.  The outer layer was decorated with pink roses and green leaves.  The dress had no sleeves at all, just two semi-wide straps that went over his shoulders.  The waist of the thing seemed to come right up underneath the bra he was wearing, although the dress itself completely hid the bra, but not the bumps the bra created.  The waist had a pink and green band that went all the way around and ended in a big bow just off center under his “breasts.”  From just below the waistband, the skirt of the dress flared way out until it ended…far shorter than he thought it should.

He reached behind him to zip the thing up.  Just reaching the zipper was difficult.  He had to fight and stretch hard to pull that zipper up as high as it would go.  The dress began to squeeze his entire chest tightly.  Very tightly.  The darn thing was too small.  Why had they specified that it had to be a size twelve?  With one final effort, the zipper was up as far as it would go.  It was on.

His hands went down to his sides, and he realized he could easily grab the bottom hem of the dress with his hands.  It was that short!  Damn!  He hoped the stupid thing would at least cover his underwear.  He pressed in on the skirt.  Yeah.  It looked like it would, but not by much.

Now what?  He realized he had no choice but to leave the safe confines of the stall.  He put his pants and shirt into the bag that had held the dress.  He grabbed his little girl cat purse.  And he opened the stall door.  He did his best not to look at anyone as he walked purposefully out of the bathroom and into the crowded food court.  Yeah.  People were turning to look at him everywhere.  How could they not?

Halfway across the food court, the darn phone dinged again.  He read the message, and wasn’t surprised:  Very pretty, from top to bottom.  I hope you’re enjoying yourself.  Throw your pants and shirt into a trash can.  Make sure to throw them separately along with any bags you’re still carrying.  One of our watchers has been instructed to make sure you put your pants and your shirt into the trash.  You’re wearing a pretty dress now.  What would you need pants and a shirt for?

Bruce really wanted to hit someone…or cry.

 

Sissy Shopping Nightmare - Part 1 of 4

Okay people.  While you’ve been reading Extracted, I’ve been majorly busy writing…writing…and doing more writing.  This one here though is nothing but a quick little interlude I wrote up before we get into a much bigger and far better story. 

Be warned!  I’m now going back to the roots of what this blog was originally about, sissy and humiliating stuff!  Which means that unlike the previous stories, it may not be safe for work at all.  But then I don’t know what your work situation is.  For all I know, some of you may sit in an office with others and invent kinky stories all day, every day (how do I get a job like that?).

 Sorry, but there’s really nothing new in this story at all, so you may or may not be interested in reading it since I’m sure most of you already know how it goes.  Why?  Because this is just the old shopping trip fantasy that everyone has had.  As I said, nothing new here.  It’s just done my way. 

No chapters, just four posts.  Enjoy it or don’t bother.  As I said, you know what happens anyway.  I promise though, the next story is really, really good!  One of my best!

 

 

Sissy Shopping Nightmare

By Karen Singer

 

Part 1 of 4

 

Bruce just kept telling himself that the life of his son was at stake.  Whatever they did to him, whatever they forced him to do, it was all to save the life of his son.  He would kill himself to save his boy.  His Jimmy.

He didn’t know why they were doing this.  He didn’t understand any of it at all.  None of it made any sense to him.  Yet here he was, desperate to keep his son alive.  Desperate was a powerful thing.  And he was desperate.

They had dropped him off here at this mall.  Did people still shop in these places?  He had to guess so since the mall was here, and now so was he.  He had been dropped off exactly at eight thirty in the morning.  They told him most of the stores opened at nine o’clock, and then closed at nine o’clock at night.  They would pick him up right here at nine thirty tonight.  The rest of the time he would have to stay inside the mall and do everything he was told.  Or else!

His mind went back to the last time he had seen Jimmy, just a short while ago.  Jimmy had been tied to a chair on the other side of the room from him, and he had been forced to watch while they beat him mercilessly, as if Jimmy was a full-grown man.  But Jimmy was only twelve.  A boy.  Nowhere near a man yet.  But that hadn’t seemed to matter to them in the least.  Jimmy was tied, and they had still beat his twelve-year-old son almost beyond recognition.

By the time they pulled him away from his son and brought him here to this mall, Jimmy had been bleeding and bruised in a number of places, especially his poor face.  His eyes were so swollen he could barely see.  His lips so bruised he could barely talk.  He suspected that more than a few of Jimmy’s ribs had been broken as well.  Bruce wasn’t sure if there were any teeth at all left in Jimmy’s mouth.  Jimmy had looked beyond miserable.  He had looked like he simply wanted to die.

And to make matters so much worse, he had been tied there and forced to watch Jimmy’s entire beating.  One man with a monster mask covering his entire head had stood over Jimmy in that chair, and punched him again, and again, and again.  And every single punch that man had thrown had been hard and cruel.  Jimmy was only twelve years old.  Twelve!

Who were they?  Who were these cruel people that would do such a thing?  He didn’t know because every last one of them that he had seen had been wearing monster masks that covered their entire head.  It was impossible for him to tell who any of them were.  Certainly nobody he knew, and he doubted that Jimmy knew any of them either, especially since they were all adults.

Through it all, since he was tied to another chair on the other side of the room, he had been able to do nothing but beg them over and over to stop hurting his son.

Poor Jimmy.  He didn’t appear to have any idea in the world why they were beating him like they did.  Both of them were confused about it.  But that hadn’t stopped them one bit.

He had noticed a number of times when the man beating Jimmy had leaned down close to Jimmy’s ear and whispered something to him.  But he had been too far away to hear any of that.  And each time, the man had gone back to punching Jimmy viciously afterwards.

His son needed to be in a hospital now, but instead, they had taken him away from his son and thrown him into the back of a van, and brought him here, telling him very little in the process.

From what little he could make sense of, it appeared they wanted him to play some kind of twisted game.  A game where he would be punished now instead of his son.  According to them, he was being punished for being a bad father.  A bad parent.  Even though for the life of him, Bruce didn’t know what he had ever done that was so wrong.  He had always considered himself to be a good father.  Maybe not perfect, but at least good.  His relationship with Jimmy had always been strong and loving.  Yet these people claimed otherwise.

So here he was, dropped off at the mall.  A place he would have to spend all day inside, when he should be spending all day in a hospital room with his son instead.

According to them, there would be a minimum of five of them in the mall…somewhere…at all times, keeping an eye on him.  He would never know who they were.  They would change people out frequently but there would still always be five.  All so they could always keep a close eye on him.  If he tried to contact any kind of authorities or tell anyone exactly why he would be doing the things he did, Jimmy would die.  If he didn’t do what they asked, Jimmy would die.  If he didn’t do everything he was told perfectly, made any mistakes, Jimmy would be punished mercilessly.  Jimmy had already been punished mercilessly.  He didn’t need anymore.  As far as Bruce knew, his son hadn’t done anything to be punished for.

With little choice, and to save the life of his son, he walked through the mall doors and looked around.  The place wasn’t busy or noisy yet, but it was only eight thirty and the stores were still closed.  Looking around, he didn’t see anyone who might be one of the people who was supposed to watch him, but they said he’d never be able to spot them.

His hand reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone they had given him.  All his tasks, everything they wanted him to do, would be sent to him on that phone…when the stores opened.  Until then, he would have to wait.  There was no way to get a headstart on any of it.  There was no way to do anything but wait and worry about what they wanted him to do, and of course, worry about Jimmy.

Were they still hurting him…now that he had agreed to do whatever they wanted?  Now that he was here, he could only hope they were leaving Jimmy alone.

Why was he here?  Why a mall?  He hadn’t been inside a mall in years.  He wandered slowly, just looking around.  Not many people.  Very few stores were open yet.

Did people still shop in these places?  Evidently they did.

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

“There he is,” Larry said as he looked at the computer monitor showing the inside of the mall.  “The link Steve sent us from the security office is working perfectly.”

“Mm,” Phyllis murmured.  She expected it to work.  She had paid Steve enough to be able to tap into the mall’s entire video system, so everything better work.  She was supposed to have full access to the system, which would give her the ability to see almost the entire mall.

She planned on sitting right here and following every single step that Bruce took, and watching every single little thing he did, all day!  Beyond that, she was paying three other people to take turns inside the mall, who would also watch everything that damn man did.  Every time he didn’t do exactly as he was told, she had no problem with hurting his son.  None.  He deserved it.  His son deserved it, and so did the father.

She’d really like to do nothing more than outright murder that boy for what he had done to her son Jason, but somehow, this idea seemed more fitting.  Bruce was a bad parent.  He obviously hadn’t brought his son up right.  Now he was going to pay for that.  And as for Jimmy…well, she still might kill him before it was all over with.  It’s what he deserved.  Bruce too for that matter.

As she watched Bruce slowly wandering, her mind went to thinking about her own son, Jason.  Bruce’s son had bullied him and traumatized him so badly that she had to pull Jason out of school and he had wound up in psychiatric care.  He was getting better, but he was still being counseled once a week by a psychiatrist.  She had complained bitterly to the school, but as far as she could see, nothing had been done at all.  So now she was taking steps.  She was handling the problem personally.  She would have her revenge for Jason, not just on Jimmy, but also on the real problem, Jimmy’s father, who hadn’t raised Jimmy right in the first place.  Parents had a responsibility!  It was time Bruce learned that fact.

She had made sure that her son, Jason, wasn’t around while they kidnapped and beat the bully who had harmed him so much.  She hadn’t wanted the actual beating to have any kind of adverse affect on her son.  The beating Jimmy had given Jason had been bad enough.  But she would allow Jason to see the effects of the beating she’d had done to Jimmy, and she could also show him the revenge lesson she was about to dish out to Jimmy’s father. 

She knew for a fact that Jimmy wanted to see Jimmy hurt, and hurt badly for what he had done.  He often talked of nothing else.  By the end of the day today, her son Jason would be able to rest easier knowing that the revenge had been taken, that the lesson had been taught, and that this bully kid would think twice about ever hurting anyone again.

That was the best way she knew of to show her son how much she loved him.  How much she cared about him.

“Coming up on time,” Larry told her.  “Almost nine o’clock.”

“Thanks,” she replied.  She pulled out her cellphone, found the picture she needed, and typed some instructions.  On the computer monitor, she could see many of the stores that weren’t already open, in the process of opening.  She watched the clock.  At exactly nine o’clock she sent the text containing the picture and Bruce’s first instructions.

Now she would see.  Now the revenge against Jimmy’s father would begin.  He had no idea yet what was in store for him today, but he would soon figure it out, and he wouldn’t like it one bit.  She was sure of that.  Just as she was sure that he wouldn’t like having his son murdered right in front of him.  He would have no choice but to consider everything she was about to do to him to be the lesser of two evils.  Bruce would play her game.  And Bruce would suffer almost as badly as his son.  Just in a much different way.

 

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The phone they had given him dinged signaling that a text had come in.  He checked it and opened the text message.  There was a picture of…something.  Whatever it was appeared to be shaped like the head of a cat, complete with two ears sticking up from the top, but the entire thing from one side to the other appeared to be a fuzzy rainbow-colored thing.  It took him a moment to realize that it was a picture of a purse or handbag of some sort.  He read the text.  This purse is somewhere in the mall.  Find it and buy it.  I recommend not wasting any time or Jimmy will get hurt.

Buy the purse?  And he’d have to find it too…in the entire huge mall?  Where the heck was he supposed to look?  He had never shopped for purses before.  Uncertain about it, his steps quickened as his eyes scanned the stores around him.  The idea of the major department stores hit him, and he turned his steps in the direction of the nearest one.

Looking through all the women’s purses in the store made him feel embarrassed, but he forced himself to look anyway, albeit as fast as possible.  Not seeing anything close to what he was looking for, he started to leave when a thought struck him.  That picture, it had almost looked more like…  He quickly headed for the girl’s section of the store instead.  The purses available there were much more in line with the one he needed to find, but the one he wanted wasn’t there.  As he hurried out to the mall concourse to find the next place to look, he was convinced that he was looking for a purse for a girl instead of a woman.

He didn’t find the purse until the third department store.  It was indeed in the girl’s section, and now that he had the thing in his hands, he decided it was more like something for a very young girl.  Still, finding and buying it was the task that had been set for him.  He paid for it and carried his bag out to the concourse to wait for his next instruction.  The moment he got out of the store his phone dinged with another text message:  Try to get the tags removed from that purse.  If you can’t, leave them.  Remove everything from your pockets and put them into the purse and carry it.  Throw the bag from the store into the trash can.

Carry the darn thing?  They had to be kidding!  He was going to look like a fool.  He realized something.  Something important.  There was no doubt at all that he was being watched…closely!  Whoever was watching not only knew that he had gotten the right purse, but they knew the moment he got back to the mall concourse.  He looked all around, but didn’t see anyone who might be one of those watchers.

Not liking it, but having no choice, he carefully emptied what few things that were in his pockets and put them into the purse.  He grabbed the small purse handle and began wandering slowly again, waiting for the next message.  What would they want him to do next?

He didn’t have to wait long to find out.  Another text message came in.  When he checked the phone he found another picture.  This time it appeared to be a pair of girl’s frilly ankle socks.  White socks trimmed in pink lace.  The short message read:  Make sure you get them in your size.

 

First the little girl’s purse, now little girl socks?  But if they had to be in his size, that meant he needed to search the women’s departments for them.  But again, which store?  Frustrated already, he hurried back into the store he had just left.  This time, carrying his new little girl purse.

The seemingly simply task they had given him turned out to be frustratingly difficult.  It took him four stores to find the exact socks that the picture showed.  Actually buying the things however meant an exercise in embarrassment as he pulled his wallet from the little girl purse to pay for the socks, then of course he had to put the wallet and receipt for the socks back into the purse when he was done.  He carried the small bag containing the socks out of the store to the mall concourse, fearful of what the next instructions were going to be.

Two steps out of the store, the phone dinged again.  He looked at it and wanted to throw the phone in anger, even though it was exactly what he had suspected:  Put the socks on and throw your old socks into the trash can.

He was starting to get a better idea of what this sick game would entail.  But if it would keep Jimmy from being hurt, he would do anything in the world.  What he’d really like to do though was to commit murder.  The murder of whoever had kidnapped him and Jimmy and then had beat his son mercilessly.

He carried the bag with the socks to a nearby bench and removed his shoes and socks.  With a number of people noticing what he was doing, he unpackaged the filly girly socks with their fancy turned down ankle trimmed in pink lace, and pulled them onto his feet.  He looked around.  Yeah, everybody was still walking, but so many people had been watching him while he put them on.  He slipped his shoes on and stood up.  Fortunately, his pants covered his new embarrassing socks completely.  They couldn’t cover the little girl’s handbag he had to carry though.