There was no way that Claire was going to accomplish anything productive that afternoon, so she spent the next few hours wandering around the downtown shops.
The butterflies in her stomach wouldn't go away. She kept flipping back and forth emotionally between feeling so excited she was tingling from her jawbone to her toes, and feeling so appalled at herself for agreeing to do something so crass and demeaning that she wanted to call and cancel.
When it came down to it, she'd made a commitment, so she was there at 6pm with the other six V-pups, ready to be transformed into a playful puppy for the entertainment of the investors.
The first thing for Claire was the face-painting. Given the variety of different jobs that Ms. Perston's agency served, she needed to have a great makeup artist and Claire thought they did a really good job. Her slightly wavy brunette hair was long enough that she almost always wore it in a pony-tail, but the makeup artist chose to leave it loose and placed a headband with fuzzy ears over her head. She thought she looked cute, but not like she was about to attend a six-year-old's birthday party. The face-paint didn't obscure her face as well as a mask, but in the unlikely event that there was someone she knew at the event, she doubted they'd recognize her.
It's not as though anyone would be looking at her face.
With that done, it was only 20 minutes before the start of the reception, so she took off all her clothes. Claire opened up the box labelled "Bubbles", took out the collar and tail and once again set about lubing and inserting the butt plug.
This was really about to happen. The familiar combination of apprehension and excitement gripped her. Compared to her art class modelling, and even being a naked extra in a movie, this time the intensity was on a totally different level. She had to sit for a moment and get her breathing under control.
What the fuck am I doing? she asked herself.
With ten minutes to go, Claire had on the entire costume. They'd matched her skin colour fairly well for the stick on knee pads and the mittens.
She was on her hands and knees waiting, looking at the door that they'd be going through. They'd be going out into the garden which was currently bathed in the bright golden sunlight of a late-June evening, and they'd emerge into a reception of well-fed, slightly drunk, and no doubt wealthy investors.
Mark and Maggie had checked on all of them, connecting and testing the Veritail operating system. Claire felt the slight expansion of the plug and each of the different vibrations. She felt herself getting more and more turned on, just as feelings of terror were building.
She and Liana were the only ones who had opted to go completely naked. Liana looked so edgy with all her tattoos and piercings. She'd opted for black leather gloves, and black athletic kneepads and shoulder pads. Claire, with her cute face-paint, mostly invisible knee pads and pink mittens, couldn't help feeling really exposed.
She was looking over at Liana and then noticed that she had added a black thong. Claire couldn't see, but she must have put a hole in it for the Veritail to go through.
Liana wasn't completely naked!
Liana glanced at Claire and must have noticed the horrified look on her face. "Yeah, I covered up a bit," she said. "I'm hoping to make as much money on tips as possible. When Eliza said they can ask for anything they want, I figured the best tips will come from letting them have a bit of hands-on. I have no problem with that, I'll even let them give me a few swats on my ass if they want to call me a bad dog. But I'm not okay with some guy I can't even see having his hands on my ass, with my snatch bare and wide open. I know this is a safe event, but dudes will be dudes, you know?"
Holy fuck! Claire thought. I'm the only one completely naked!
She couldn't even run back to put more on because she hadn't worn underwear under her leggings today.
Her heart started pounding even harder. She felt like she might have a panic attack. She reminded herself that she was anonymous, and she could say no to any "interaction" that she didn't want. She was in control. This would be over in a couple of hours and she'd have a memory of having done something incredibly daring and sexy.
... and SO incredibly slutty, she thought.
She was horny, vulnerable and terrified. This is what she wanted, but she was definitely taking it further than she'd ever imagined. She was going to be the centre of so much attention. She pushed down another wave of panic. She tried to think of anything that could go wrong that would bring even more attention to her.
"Snap out of it!" Claire told herself. It was like riding a roller-coaster. She wanted to FEEL scared and out of control, but this was a completely controlled situation.
She gave her bum a little wag to test that the tail was working and immediately felt a bit better. It was like the tail wanted to be wagged and in return it would give her freedom from whatever might be troubling her. She wagged a little more and let herself be infected by a bit of happy playfulness. She slowly felt a grin spread across her face. She felt joyful and she channelled that joy back into more wagging. The tail created a happiness feedback loop.
She let that sensation displace her anxiety and pretty soon she was letting herself be taken over by the enthusiasm that she imagined her Bubbles persona would be feeling right then.
The excitement came over her so quickly she couldn't contain it. "Arf!" she said and wagged her tail even harder. "Arf!"
Her fellow V-pups all started wagging and barking, too.
Eliza walked up from behind them and up to the door. She looked incredibly stylish and confident.
"Alright, alright. Calm down!" she said, grinning down at them, and at Claire in particular who had got them all barking. "I'm going to walk out first, then I'm going to introduce each of you one at a time so everyone knows your name. There's a pillow for each of you along the wall with a name plate. I'd like you to come out when I call you and go and sit on your pillow while I explain everything to our guests. Do you all understand?"
"Arf!" Claire said enthusiastically, giving Eliza another wag. She couldn't help it, she was grinning madly. The others all followed her lead.
"Okay, Bubbles, you seem to be really enjoying this," Eliza addressed Claire directly. "I need one of you to help me with some demonstrations. Will you do that for me?"
Claire wondered what that would entail. Eliza was a beautiful, sexy woman and Claire had admired her the instant she'd seen her. The contrast could not have been more extreme. Eliza was fully clothed in what Claire could only think of as a woman's power suit. She was looking right at Claire. If Claire had been wearing the nicest clothes she owned, she would have felt invisible next to this amazing woman. At that moment, Claire was naked on her hands and knees with her cute face-paint and puppy ears headband. She was looking up at Eliza and the power imbalance couldn't have made her feel more foolish. She blushed deeply. The sensible part of her told her that agreeing to help with demonstrations, not knowing what they may be, was REALLY stupid, but she couldn't say no to this amazing woman. She tried to sink deeper into her Bubbles persona. Claire forced herself to give her best shrugging "arf?" to say "why not", and followed it up with a confirmation wag.
Eliza smiled, nodded and turned to the door. "Show time!" she said.
Claire fought hard to stay in the Bubbles character. She had to push the increasingly scared, naked human girl further down. The full enormity of what was about to happen was unloading on her. She was about to crawl out that door into the late June evening sunshine on her hands and knees stark naked in front of a crowd of men. Why had she agreed to help with demonstrations? She was now the only one of the seven who was completely naked, so she was already going to get more than her share of everyone's attention. Helping with demonstrations would mean that absolutely everyone's eyes would be on her.
Oh God!
Claire was the third one to be announced when Eliza called out, "Bubbles!".
She forced herself to get moving out the door. The first thing she noticed was that it wasn't all men. There were an awful lot of suits but also some expensive dresses. There was applause as each of them came out and it got noticeably louder for her. There were some loud whistles. It seemed odd that everyone would clap for a stark naked girl crawling on her hands and knees. But she knew what was expected of her, so she barked and wagged as she made her way to sit like an obedient puppy on the dog bed with the Bubbles name plate.
Like before, wagging her tail immediately helped settle her mood. I'm role-playing, she told herself, the more I immerse myself in being a puppy, the less terrifying this will be.
She also noticed that there were too many guests there for her to see them all. There must have been more than a hundred in attendance.
In order that all of the guests could see Claire and the rest of the Veritail Puppies enter and go their respective pillows, there was a great big screen mounted above them on the wall. It must have been ten feet wide. Claire then spotted the guy with the camera.
This was exactly what her inner exhibitionist had been craving, but being completely naked on her hands and knees in front of so MANY men in suits, outside in bright sunshine, and with the added obscenity of having a tail plugged into her ass made the experience incredibly intense. She thought she might scream or burst out in tears. It was a reception, so everyone was holding drinks. They were smiling, laughing and looking intently at her and the other V-pups. Claire had to purposely avoid looking at the crowd of leering faces and just looked at Eliza as she went over the details of how things would work.
Claire kind of zoned out for a bit until she heard Eliza say, "Bubbles, could you come up here, please?" Eliza was looking directly at her, and when Claire didn't move immediately, Eliza tapped her own thigh twice and said, "here Bubbles!"
Oh shit! Claire thought. Everyone is looking right at me!
