Tales From the Embassy: Prologue

-Alice-

Alice watched the handsome, besuited blond man produce a neon-green collar from behind the desk and slide it over to her.

"This," the man explained, "is your embassy pass. Please put it on now."

Alice paused, but only for a moment. She had been warned about the shape of the "pass" already, though the color was something of a shock. She took it in her hands and carefully began wrapping it around her neck.

"Please make sure it is secured snugly," the man said, his face suddenly becoming very stern. "And make sure all three buckles are... buckled. This is very important. And yes, I'm sure you're aware of that, but I am required by law to impress this upon you regardless. Make sure it is on properly."

Alice quietly did what she was told without comment, all the while trying very hard to not be distracted by how sexy the man's accent was. Well... how sexy the man's everything was, to be perfectly blunt. Bliservian men were drop-dead gorgeous, nearly the whole lot of them. But the accent definitely helped. If she had to describe it... she'd say it felt like a buttery-smooth mix of French and Italian... but with a healthy dash of refined British. Juuuust enough to make him sound completely in his element speaking English to her. Almost making her feel like she was the one saying things wrong.

Click! Click! Click!

"...Done," said Alice, tugging the collar to make sure it was snug.

"Good," said the blond man. "You will notice two lenses on the front and back. Those are your cameras. ...Ah. Yes. Good. Looks like your hair is short enough to not get in the way. Very well then."

"How do I turn them on?" Alice asked, looking down and trying to get a mental image of what she looked like with this... thing, all neon-green straps and metal parts, wrapped around her neck.

"You don't," said the man. "They're always on. When the cruise is complete and you return home, the footage it records will be yours to access from the cloud. You are free to cut and edit that footage however you wish. But the Bliservian people take slander and libel very seriously. Like the form you signed states, should your documentary misrepresent what happens in the embassy in any way, we reserve the right to release all 192 hours of raw footage that collar will capture in order to set the record straight. No matter what you might have allowed those cameras to record. So please do keep that in mind."

"O-of course," said Alice.

"Good," said the man, still stern. "Then please also keep in mind that, as per the treaty we signed with America in order to set up this little program in the first place, we will be required to release that raw, unedited footage, in its entirety, in the event that you remove your pass for any reason while inside Bliservian territory. To make certain, of course, that the appropriate authorities know the circumstances under which this happened. But rest assured there will be no need to remove it. It is quite comfortable, as I'm sure you've noticed, and, except under very rare circumstances, it does not need to be washed."

"Got it," said Alice.

"Again, good," said the blond man, who suddenly stood up and walked out from behind the desk. Damn was this man tall, Alice thought as he looked down at her. "I'm afraid I must emphasize this again: if you wish to return home from the cruise, keep that pass on. It represents your permission, as an American woman, to set foot inside the Bliservian embassy. Should you remove the pass, or should you go beyond the docks when we arrive at the fatherland, Bliservia will interpret that as a renunciation of your American citizenship, and will respond accordingly. Do you understand?"

"Y-yes," Alice stammered, finding it difficult to look the man in the face when he stared down at her like that with those piercing green eyes.

"Very well," said the man, once again adopting his smooth, charming smile. "Then do you have any other questions?"

"...Just one," said Alice. "You said this gives me permission to set foot in the Bliservian embassy." She gestured to the building. "I thought this was the Bliservian embassy."

"Oh no," said the man politely. "Not quite. This is merely the entrance. An embassy is considered the territory of the nation it's for, as I'm sure you're aware. Given our laws, having this building itself be part of the embassy would be... problematic, shall we say. The actual embassy, you see... is the ship itself."

Not entirely sure what to do with his information besides nod, Alice did so, and then walked away from the front desk. And as she walked away, back towards the "embassy" entrance, she could feel the excitement building in her. It was finally sinking in what was about to happen. She had done it. She was about to make history, at the young age of eighteen no less. Never mind getting her into film school. This documentary was going to make her famous. By the end of the week, she would have a story that no woman in history had ever been able to tell.

All that remained was to get the footage. And if she wanted certain key shots, she had to act now. Picking up the pace, she hustled back out through the front entrance doors and into the parking lot. Then she started looking around.

"Bliservia," narrated Alice, to herself and the camera around her neck. "A beautiful, mysterious, and above all, infamous nation, on a tropical island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Once uninhabited and uninhabitable, it was settled around one thousand years ago by a tribe of... thoroughly mixed European ancestry, said to all have one very prolific common ancestor, known only as 'the forefather'. With time, ingenuity and hard work, they transformed what was once little more than a barren rock in the middle of the sea into a sprawling island paradise. And that was only the beginning of their achievements. The Bliservian people hold the record for most disproportionate number of Nobel prizes won, they've been the spearheads for a mind-boggling number of surgical, pharmaceutical and medical advances, and their people are so unfailingly blessed with brilliance, beauty and longevity that many are convinced this so-called 'Forefather' was nothing short of a demigod."

Suddenly Alice's eyes latched onto a limousine pulling into the parking lot. Jackpot.

"And yet on the world stage," Alice continued, peering out at the incoming limo from behind a pillar, "all of that is overshadowed, and undermined, by their country's reputation. Specifically, their laws. Laws so backward that their pilgrimage to their new island home was due to even their benighted neighbors of ages past finding them unbearably vile."

She stopped for dramatic effect, for the limo too came to a halt. Alice's heart pounded with excitement as the driver's side door opened, and out came the driver. He walked around to the entrance-side passenger doors, opened them, and a hand reached out to meet his. And with the driver's help, out stepped a woman of almost impossible beauty.

The package she came in alone was tantalizing; Alice could see her sparkling in the sunlight from all the way at the entrance. Alice counted two earrings in the woman's ears, one ruby, one emerald; a sapphire necklace adorned her neck; and on her right hand's ring finger, there was a single, solitary diamond ring. And even as black as they were, her high heels were so clean and polished that they too glimmered in the sun's rays. But that was only the beginning of what made her shine in the light. She wore a dress of gold sequins (made out of actual gold by the looks of it), one that started tantalizingly high up her thighs, mere inches shy of skipping them entirely. It then went up her body, holding tight to every inch and curve it passed, until reaching her waist, where it seemed to give up entirely on being a dress at all.

Only two singular strips of sequined fabric rose up to do the job, emerging in a V shape just above her navel. They snaked behind, up and all around her body to wrap around her neck, most of her breasts, and seemingly as little else as possible. Large, diamond-shaped holes in the dress were left behind everywhere, like windows inviting all to stare at what lay beneath. But then the two strips reached her shoulders, then widened and looped into long sleeves, as if in a half-hearted attempt to make it feel like a dress again. As much as it failed to cover, however, Alice was certain it cost a fortune.

But it was the woman wearing it all that truly made the whole thing a treat for the eyes. Long, flowing, wavy chestnut hair; hazel eyes bedecked with full, thick lashes; breasts so perky and round and full that they looked like they had been lovingly sculpted onto her by hand; a perfectly toned stomach and waist. And finally, generous hips and long legs that made you fantasize about what lay between them. She was perfect. The kind of woman that nearly any other woman would kill to be, and she had what nearly any other woman would kill to have. Which made it almost impossible for Alice to believe that she was here. Or more specifically, what she was here for.

"Look at her, viewers," said Alice, in an intense, hyped up whisper as the woman grabbed an expensive purse and emerged fully from the limousine, turning to speak to the driver. "Look at her very, very hard. Save for her lack of blonde hair, she is the very epitome of the quintessential Bliservian woman. Stunning looks. Elegant grace. And judging by her obvious cash flow, a mind that probably saw a master's degree in the palm of her hand by the age of sixteen. And as if that weren't enough, her Bliservian genes mean she could live to be 100, and I doubt she'd look a day over forty. Take a good look, people. You are staring at the pinnacle of privilege and opportunity. The world is her oyster. She can be anyone. Do anything. And with all of that freedom, all of that privilege, all of that power... she has decided to come here. She has decided to board this ship back to the land of her birth. A ship she will board exactly as you see her now... and a ship she will leave naked and in chains."

Quickly, before the woman noticed her, Alice retreated back into the building and started walking towards the women's bathroom. She didn't strictly need permission to film anyone here, as she had been told, but she didn't want to undermine the feel of the footage by being spotted.

"For Bliservia", Alice continued, "is a nation more patriarchal than any other developed nation... no, any other nation... has ever been. A nation that has never even entertained the radical notion that women are people. A nation where women are only ever welcome as slaves. A nation that has so little use for any female too young to serve mankind that every girl born on the island is shipped off to be raised overseas. If you are a woman, then to step on Bliservian soil is to wash your hands of freedom itself. To condemn yourself, forever, to a life of perpetual submission to the men around you. And yet... somehow... impossibly... that is exactly what nearly every Bliservian woman chooses to do. And this is the day on which they do it. Every year, on this day of July 9th, Bliservian women who have come of age come from all over America to board this ship. Knowing, wanting, exactly what will happen to them the second they step on board."

Alice arrived in the bathroom, and moved to see her reflection in the mirror. Staring back at her was a teenage girl, fresh out of high school, with pale skin, short brown hair and brown eyes, dressed in the closest thing to a reporter's outfit she owned. ...Which unfortunately was her catholic schoolgirl outfit. The actual kind, complete with blazer and tie. ...Though admittedly the skirt wasn't all that long compared to most.

"I," Alice said to the mirror, with as much gravitas as she could muster, "am Alice Cooper. And over the next several days, I will be doing everything in my power to show you exactly what happens to Bliservian women when they make that fateful decision to board the Bliservian slave ship. To throw away everything we Americans hold dear, and return, in bondage, to the fatherland they yearn for. I will show you everything I can of this event in action. And maybe, just maybe... get some new insight as to why."

"Oh?" came a voice from behind her.

Alice froze. She hadn't even considered the idea that someone might have been in one of the stalls. She nervously turned around to see a woman with long, gently curly blonde hair. She was slowly opening the stall door and looking at Alice with a warm, but almost patronizing smile on her face. And as much as Alice wanted to stand her ground against that smile, it was... difficult when she saw what the woman was wearing. It was, no lie, an honest-to-goodness virgin killer sweater. The whole signature package was right there: the backless, grey, wool-knitted minidress, kept on by nothing but the thick collar of wool around her neck and the scant bit that wrapped around behind her, barely even reaching the small of her back, and not even a foot above the hemline. And needless to say, she filled out all of it. Alice could almost see the fabric gently stretching against the woman's curves. And not one single bit of that sweater was touching anything but bare skin or thin air. Because aside from the heels on her feet and the fancy-looking purse hanging from her elbow, that sweater was the only thing she had on her.

"I, uh..." said Alice, flustered and trying not to blush. "I'm, uh..."

"Filming a documentary," the woman finished sweetly in those rich, Bliservian tones. "I gathered. And who's first on your list?"

"Huh?"

"To interview," the woman clarified patiently, her smile widening the tiniest bit and showing her perfect pearly whites. "I assume you will be interviewing the embassy staff first, no?"

"Um, no," said Alice. "I, uh... figured... Abigail had that subject... um... pretty much covered."

"Yes," said the woman, "I suppose she did. You're very brave to come here after what happened to her. Brave, or... perhaps something else?"

Alice swallowed. Abigail Prima had been the first, and until today only, woman to put on an embassy pass and report on what went on aboard a Bliservian slave ship, during her now-infamous live broadcast ten years ago. Unfortunately, the report had taken an unexpected turn two days in when she famously tore off her own embassy pass, cast it aside, ripped open her own clothes, and started begging the staff to take her. The rest of America then watched in horror as she was escorted, naked, to the slave quarters, where she was put through the 16 hours of mandatory preliminary house-slave training she had to catch up on. The very same 16 hours of house-slave training she had filmed other women going through mere days prior.

Professional footage analysis concluded that Abigail Prima had indeed done this of her own free will, and had not been drugged or coerced in any way. Abigail, it was eventually concluded, was simply a one-in-a-million degenerate. One of the mere handful of non-Bliservian women who occasionally find themselves drawn to the land and its laws. Perhaps two days of being on the boat and surrounded by slaves had awakened those feelings in her. Perhaps it had been her plan the entire time, and she only took the job so that the whole country could be watching her as it happened. No one was truly sure.

But her own free will or not, the fact was that she was the first woman to be allowed to film aboard a Bliservian slave ship. The first woman to do it, in the first country that entertained the idea at all. And she met the exact same fate as every other woman who had ever walked aboard. Needless to say, there was a chilling effect, and it was massive. No other country allowed it, and no other woman in America dared take the opportunity. For ten. Whole. Years.

And that was a problem, because the consensus was that, if a report were to be done properly, it would need a woman's touch. This wasn't a subject men could be sympathetic or even neutral towards and not suffer total career suicide. And being critical without misrepresenting anything was a very dangerous game, especially when anyone who wished to film would be supplying their hosts with some very embarrassing footage the Bliservian government was completely within their rights to make public to "correct the record" should they fail to be completely honest.

The world needed a woman willing to take the risk again. Only a woman like that could produce the neutral, accurate report the world needed. And it seemed that woman was her. Did that make her brave? ...Maybe? She didn't feel brave. She felt terrified, to be sure, but it wasn't courage that was powering her through. More like sheer adrenaline, and the fact that it was too late to chicken out now...

...And the prospect of spending the next eight days surrounded by gorgeous, submissive women. But she'd have to keep that in check if she wanted to be taken seriously. Which was going to be hard, if all of them were going to be as flirty as this one.

"I was, um... planning to talk to the women more," said Alice. "Focus on them. But, uh..."

"...But it's hard to get in contact with us before we get here," supplied the woman, twirling her hair with her finger, "so you planned to ask around as we arrived."

"Um, yes, exactly," said Alice, trying very hard to keep her composure as the woman very slowly, very deliberately, walked right into her face, her breasts level with Alice's head. The woman looked down at the girl, smiled sweetly, and said:

"Would you like to start with me?"