Lord Torrid started to answer, but just then Lady Tabuu started wailing that she was “coming…coming so hard!” and the second set of breasts that Torrid had been massaging suddenly started spraying dark purple liquid in jetting squirts across the room.
Em gasped and jumped back quickly to avoid the ink-like splatter—which quite ruined the white carpet wherever it landed. Unfortunately, this motion caused her arms to lift away from her body.
All this time, she’d been keeping her upper arms pressed to her sides, to avoid having the Venetian Blinds dress play peek-a-boo with her nipples. Just as she had feared, the moment she lifted her arms, her nipples were revealed.
But it wasn’t only her nipples that were suddenly visible. The abrupt motion of jumping back seemed to activate the entire dress, which meant that Em found herself practically naked in front of Rarev and a room full of strangers!
16
Em felt a sudden breeze and when she looked down, she saw that every single horizontal strip of material had suddenly tilted up. It was as though someone had twisted the little stick on the side of a set of blinds to open them fully, which left her entire body completely on display.
“Bloody hell!” she gasped. Hastily, she tried to correct the problem, smoothing the horizontal strips of fabric back down over her breasts and crotch but they wouldn’t stay. They just kept popping back up, no matter what she did. It was like one of those nightmares, Em thought dismally, the ones where you find yourself in front of a roomful of important people and then realize you’re utterly naked. Only in this case, it wasn’t a nightmare she could wake up from—it was really happening.
“Oombaloomba—such curves!” The odd exclamation came from Om’bobla, the male from Orbulous, who was suddenly there. He seemed to have oozed over from his chair by his mermaid wife and now his bulbous orange eyes were locked onto Em’s mostly bare body. To her horror, she saw that he was extending one slimy hand, the tentacle-fingers writhing with lust.
Rarev must have seen this too because he pushed her protectively behind him and glared at Om’bobla.
“How dare you approach my mate in this way?” he demanded, his voice dropping to a low, threatening growl.
“Well, but…she put herself on display,” Om’bobla protested. “Does not that mean that she wishes to be stroked by any with tentacles who wish to stroke her?”
“It most certainly does not,” Em said emphatically, peering around Rarev’s broad shoulder.
“Om’bobla!” his mermaid wife screeched from her chair. “Get back here at once or I’m leaving you!”
“Er…” Elfa, who had been standing quietly by, cleared her throat diplomatically. “I think your lovely wife wants you, Mr. Om’bobla,” she said.
Rarev pointed a finger in the other male’s face.
“Don’t come near my mate again,” he growled as Om’bobla slunk away, back to his mermaid wife who was so angry her face had gone nearly the color of her scales. “Are you well, Emilia?” he added, speaking over his shoulder to Em, though he considerably kept his eyes facing front so he couldn’t see her.
“I…think I will be in a moment,” Em told him. She had succeeded in getting the latticed strips of her dress to lie flat again, though a few of them kept wanting to pop up from time to time.
“You should have no fear about displaying your body,” Elfa said, looking around Rarev to speak to her. “After all, you have been Purified and almost everyone else in the room is wearing less than you are.”
Em realized this was true, but it didn’t make her feel less vulnerable.
“Thank you,” she said stiffly. “But I still prefer to be decently covered in public.”
“When you feel ready, you can come and meet the last couple competing in our Trials,” Elfa said. “And then we can begin our first Trial.”
Em looked down at herself and realized that this was probably as good as things were going to get. She was mostly covered and hopefully, as long as she didn’t make any sudden movements, she might avoid further exposure.
“I’m ready,” she said stiffly. And, making certain to keep her arms down by her sides, she stepped out from behind Rarev. “Thank you for keeping that horrid octopus man away from me,” she murmured to the big Monstrum as she took her place beside him.
“Of course.” He gave her a sidelong look from those golden eyes. “Did I not swear that I would protect and shield you? A Monstrum always keeps his oath.”
Before Em could answer, Elfa was leading them to the last set of crystal chairs, where two much more human-looking people were sitting.
“This is Mistress Tatterass from Yonnie Six and her partner, Charn,” Elfa introduced them.
Mistress Tatterass was a woman whom Em judged to be around her own age. Her bright blue hair was piled in an elaborate swirl atop her head and she was wearing a long, gauzy gown that was see-through enough to show her naked body beneath, which was thin to the point of being bony.