She made sure this time that she tied the knot in her dressing gown securely, although not too tightly around her body. On the one hand she didn't want to give a repeat performance and on the other, she didn't want to emphasise her narrow waist. Then, she checked her hair and the little make-up she wore in the mirror, before walking calmly and carefully to the door.

A peep through the security spy-hole revealed little. She could just make out some spiky ginger hair, which meant that the visitor was either stooping down to avoid being seen or was less than five foot tall. Strange! Engineers in Texas, tended to be large men in cowboy boots, denim jeans and loud, check shirts with packets of Marlboro in the pockets.

The door-bell rang again and perceiving no threat but with an overwhelming desire to get out of her predicament, she opened the door. She did not reveal the expected large man, but an incredibly slim woman as short as she had surmised, perhaps a couple of years younger than herself.

***

'Are you the engineer?' She peered down the almost twelve inches that divided their eyes, into a face heavily made-up with dark eye-shadow and an almost black lip-stick. 'You don't look like the sort of person, I was expecting!'

'Why not?' Her voice and attitude was robust, as she pushed up the sleeve of her jacket, to show a small tattoo of a gear wheel and a snake on her wrist. 'I've got one of these!' She smiled back and pouted upwards. 'You don't look like a diabetic!'

Vee-Bee looked her up and down, as she stood waiting in the doorway. Her mode of dress was in direct contrast to what she would have worn for business, with hair very reminiscent of the Punk era of the eighties, at least three piercings in each ear and one in her nose. She was wearing an expensive black, mid-thigh, leather suit, which was zipped tight across her extremely flat chest. A zipped split in the skirt was undone almost to her waist, showing that she shared Vee-Bee's taste for stockings. And especially in black! At least she had been right about the cowboy boots!

Judging by the rest of her style, she wondered, if the tattoo and piercings she had seen were the only ones! Perhaps, she had a safety pin, through a nipple? Ouch!

'Hi! I'm Sandra!' She held out a hand. 'And you're Vee-Bee! And the big boss in England, says you've got yourself in one unholy mess!' She walked past her into the house. 'Show me the way to your troubles!'

***

'Are they always that dirty inside?' Vee-Bee had propped herself against the desk, whilst Sandra efficiently took the machine apart and added the control board, whilst kneeling on the floor. But much more comfortably than she had herself! 'Do you want me to get a cleaner? I've one of those small vacuums! A brush? Tissues?'

'Yes! The vac would be a good idea!' Sandra stood up and unzipped and removed her jacket, to show a tight leather top, without straps or sleeves. Sandra's well-muscled shoulders proved her right about the tattoos. 'You don't mind, but I'm a bit hot! Could I have a Coke? Or something? All this dust is making me rather thirsty!'

'Do you wear anything but leather? That's a nice top!' Sandra ignored her, so she had started towards the kitchen. 'Is that diet or regular for the Coke?'

'The real one!' She smiled across. 'Diet Coke is for wimps! And yes! I always wear leather!'

***

'So here we go then!' Sandra had put everything back together and moved the base unit to the top of the desk. 'It's not in the way is it? But it will give a better signal up here!'

'No! It's fine. I'll organise the files you've moved, later!' Standing behind Sandra for the first time, she could now see that the top she was wearing was no ordinary one, but a properly-laced leather corset. And a very nice one! What was MrTC up to? Did he have an army of well-corsetted ladies everywhere? And was she on the list for recruitment? 'How do you fit into all this, Sandra?'

'Fit in?' Sandra was busy booting up the computer. 'I'm just an engineer, who runs Houston Environment's Installation Department. As Him in England, reckons this Diabetes Project is important, and it's a Saturday, you got me! Call it dedication! Or the luck of the draw!'

'So you work for Houston Environment, then?'

'Apparently, as we know about the connection hardware, we've become a partner in the project with CTC. That's the English company. But you know that!' As she was talking, she was installing the required software from a CD-ROM. 'Can you fill in all of your details here?' She then rose from the chair and indicated Vee-Bee to take her place.

'Could you do it all for me?' She searched for an excuse not to have to kneel in front of the machine. 'I've got rather a bad back this morning! I'd prefer to stand!'

***

'There!' Sandra was pointing to the control screen. 'It's identified three devices. One is described as a control bracelet. There's also a control belt and one of his toy cars. Where are they?'

She held out her left hand and showed Sandra the bracelet. 'How do I unlock it?'

Sandra laughed. 'So I see your problem, now! It's one of CTC's standard test devices. You shouldn't have put it on until you had got the hardware going.' She clicked on the screen and brought up a small screen specific to the device. 'I take it you didn't read the instructions?'

'No! I didn't!' Sandra had now taken her hand and jokingly made to smack it with the other for punishment, before clutching and turning the bracelet, so that the top was uppermost. She then opened a panel to reveal a small liquid crystal display, similar to those in pagers, with a couple of little buttons by the side. 'What's that?' She was intriged, but was starting to feel just a little stupid!

'It's your remote control panel!' She pointed at the display. 'That's the time and see there, you've got another thirty-two minutes before the bracelet unlocks, by itself.' She turned to the computer screen. 'It also says that here! You can also set the lock time, whether it works automatically and lots of other things using these control buttons or this menu.' She indicated everything with the mouse. 'Clever isn't it?'

'It's all a bit excessive for a bracelet!' Unless of course, you wanted to control lots of ladies remotely! But at least she was now relieved to see, that the sentence hadn't been for life!

'There's millions of the plastic version.' Sandra pulled one out of her case. 'Used for prisoners, hospital patients, visitors to secure sites. All those sort of things. It's how CTC made all their money!' She took hold of the bracelet again. 'Do you want me to unlock it, now?'

'Show me how to do it?' She looked at the screen, pointing at the various icons in the control program. 'Do I just click that unlock button there? Or do I use unlock and eject?'

'I'll just click the unlock!' She moved the mouse pointer and clicked. The bracelet beeped and at last she was able to open and remove it.

'Thank's! Can you do the same for the belt?'

Sandra brought up the screen for the belt. 'Just thirty six minutes here. Do you want it off now? Or do you want to wait?' She received a nod in answer to the first question. 'I'll click the unlock and eject!'

There was no beep, but a substantial and heavy metallic bump, as the unlocked and obviously ejected belt fell to the floor. Sandra retrieved it and turned it into a circle. 'It's rather small for you!' She showed how it just might fit herself! 'Would fit me though! But then I'm the thinnest woman in Houston!'

She smiled at up at Vee-Bee. 'You haven't got a bad back at all, have you?'

Copyright 1999 by Ewart Higgins