Through the long telephoto lens of my DSLR camera I could see a young woman carrying shopping bags standing on the lower concourse of the shopping mall near the 'You are here' map of the complex. Click.
I was sitting at a café table in the food court on the next level up, looking down over the railing, watching for her. I had watched her go into the Urban Surf boutique and she had been there for some time. Now she had bags from at least four different boutiques. She was looking around, as if she was expecting to meet someone. Click.
I picked up my cell phone and hit the 'call' button. A few seconds later, she put her bags down, fumbled in her handbag, then put a phone to her ear and spoke her name.
"Amy."
Click.
"Hi." I said.
"Where are you? You're late."
"Showtime."
"Now?"
Click.
"Yes."
"Can you see me?"
"Yes."
"What then?"
"Stay on the line."
She looked for a moment or two like she was about to say something else, then she bent down and put the phone on the ground in front of her feet. Click. She stood up straight and took a deep breath. She paid no attention at all to the people all around her as she took hold of the hem of her long t-shirt style dress with her fingertips and lifted it straight up. Click. When the hem was about waist height, she crossed her hands and kept lifting so that the shirt-dress was up and over her head and off completely in one fluid movement . Click. Click. She was now standing stark naked save only for her shoes in the middle of a busy shopping center. Click. Nonchalantly, she folded the stripped-off garment and put it in one of her shopping bags. Click. While bent down, she picked up her phone and put it to her ear again.
Amazingly, very few people near her had noticed what she had done. No-one had made a sound to attract attention to her action, so most people not actually looking in her direction had no reason to do so. Of those who happened to be facing towards her, a few were standing still, open-mouthed, hardly able to believe their eyes. Click. A young man was pointing her out to a female friend, and yet another was alternating between looking at her and looking quickly all around the immediate area, presumably for hidden cameras or for an accomplice.
"Now what?" she said.
"Turn around. See the escalator at the far end of the concourse? Take that up to the first floor."
"OK."
She spun around, and walked unhurriedly away from me. Click. There was another closer set of moving stairs that would have taken her straight up to the food area, but that would have been too easy. She would not have been seen by as many for so long had I directed her that way.
A group of three teenage boys were now following her. One of them ran ahead of her, then turned and watched her walk past him while he waited for his friends to catch up with him. Click. Then all three overtook her, and turned to stand in her way, intending to make her change her path to walk around them. She walked through the group as if it was not there, their bravado melted by her confidence and by her beauty. Click. More shoppers stood and stared as she passed.
She walked without any sense of urgency, and without giving any sense that she was not anything other than fully dressed. She even stopped to look in the window of a shoe shop about halfway down the concourse. Click. As she walked on, two sales assistants ran out of the store to confirm what they thought they had seen from the other side of the window – click - then went back into the store, giggling.
When Amy reached the escalator, she stepped onto it, then stood and let the stairs carry her upwards. She was someone with all the time in the world. At the top of the stairs, she stopped and put the phone to her ear again.
"I await your instructions, noble master," she said sarcastically, in what was meant to be some sort of Oriental accent. I could not see her face, but I could hear the smile on it. She was enjoying this. Click.
"There is a sign above you to your left. It points to the Food Court. I'll meet you in the café. Don't hang around, you've been spotted."
On the lower level, I could see two security staff in blue walking briskly in the direction of the escalators, one with a walkie-talkie to his ear. Click. I guessed that someone at the other end of a surveillance camera must have alerted them.
As Amy came towards me, looking completely edible but walking more briskly now, I stood up, holding another shirt-dress in my hands similar to the one she had recently taken off, gathered up so that it was ready to slip over her head. When she arrived at my table, she dropped her bags on the ground and held out her arms. In almost no time at all, she had put her arms into the sleeves and her head through the neck of the garment, I had pulled it down over her, and she had sat down at the table with me as if she had been there the whole time.
"I got you a latte," I said as I switched off my camera and dropped it into one of her shopping bags. "You want anything else?"
"No, ta. That's all I need." She took a sip of her coffee, then beamed at me, her face pink with excitement. "That was such a rush, Sam."
Very soon, two men with badges on their blue shirts and guns in holsters at their hips were standing next to the table, a little short of breath. Amy ignored them, I looked up and acknowledged their presence.
"Yes? Can I help you?"
The older of the two men spoke directly to Amy.
"Miss? Can you come with us, please?"
"Why?" said Amy calmly.
"Miss, you can't do that sort of thing in here. You'll have to come with us now."
"Do what sort of thing?"
"You know what I'm talking about, don't get clever with me."
"No, I don't know what you're talking about, you'll have to tell me."
The security officer began to realise that his authority was starting to slip away. He was used to his uniform with its weapon intimidating most people he needed to confront.
"You can't walk around here in the... in public. In the...mmm... without clothes on. In here."