(continued from Lauren's Story - Chapter 7)...

Lauren was not a fan of working on Saturdays but there were benefits. First, you only had to work until the office closed at noon. And you got to take a day off during the week if you worked Saturday. But it was typically a lot busier on Saturdays. Lots of prospective tenants and tenants home to report issues with their apartments. For that reason, she always scheduled 3 people to work on Saturdays. Since Stephanie had asked off, Lauren was here. Donna was here, she only worked on Saturdays. She had a full time job during the week as a secretary but liked the extra spending money the short Saturday shift provided her. Donna was another blonde in the office, although her chest size was not as large as Sarah's. She was definitely someone who garnered attention when men came into the office.
Also working that morning was Sarah. Lauren had tried to avoid Sarah when possible because she was afraid her feelings might show when they were close to one another. She wasn't in love or anything but "in lust" might be a more appropriate phrase.
The morning went by fairly easily. Not too busy but busy enough to pass the time. About an hour before the office closed the phone rang and Sarah answered. Lauren wasn't really paying attention as she was helping a couple fill out their rental application. Sarah came over to Lauren and said, "Hey, when you have a second, need to let you know about a meeting we're apparently having today."
"That's weird," said Lauren. They hardly ever had meetings on Saturdays, unless it was a month end issue and it was the middle of the month now. But, she wanted to move into a corporate role, so she would make sure it happened.
As they closed the office, the three ladies, who all happened to be wearing black pencil skirts and white or lightly colored blouses, piled into Sarah's car and headed for the meeting. Sarah had just told Lauren that it was an offsite meeting that she had mapped to on her phone. The drive seemed a little far to Lauren but she assumed there was a good reason.
Sarah pulled into the parking lot of the local community college and parked in the garage. There weren't a lot of cars parked there, but there was a good bit of traffic outside of the garage. Lauren thought she remembered some sort of festival or fair there this weekend. Maybe after the meeting they could explore the fair for some food. They were getting out of the car when she saw Stephanie and Jasmine walking toward them. They were also wearing pencil skirts with buttoned up blouses.
"Hey girls," Stephanie said as she walked up. Stephanie was the only red head in the group and always flaunted it in front of any guys that walked into their office. As with the other girls that worked there, she was 25, well endowed, and athletic as any of them. She had taken kick boxing classes for the past 3 years. It showed.
Jasmine was a little shyer. She was the only African-American of the group, and she was the thinnest of the group, as she ran marathons on a regular basis. "Can't believe we have a meeting on a Saturday." As she said this, Lauren caught an odd glance coming from Sarah, but dismissed it as being upset that there was a meeting.
Stephanie looked at her watch, and said, "We've got a few minutes, let's check out the festival."
Everyone agreed and Donna grabbed a bag from the back of Sarah's car before they headed out of the parking garage. It was a little hot outside, with high temperatures expected to be in the low 90's, and Lauren was glad she was wearing a skirt and not slacks.
As they walked into the area of food stands and tents with junk for sale, the ladies got a few whistles from some guys who had clearly hit the beer tent early that day. Lauren realized their group was basically all dressed the same. Something seemed amiss. She was typically the only one that wore a pencil skirt.
Stephanie was leading the group walk, but Lauren noticed she wasn't really stopping to look at anything. It was weird. Then, everything became clear. Stephanie stopped and turned to the group, and announced "Ok ladies, we are here. Let's have some fun and win!"
In the area they had just arrived, there was a mud volleyball court and Lauren quickly realized she had been set up. Donna opened the bag from the car and pulled out fake black rimmed glasses for everyone to wear. "There's also a costume contest for teams in the tournament," she told Lauren as she handed her a pair.
"Why?" Lauren asked the group.
"Because we thought you liked this. We all know it was you in the video..." Stephanie responded.
Lauren made a quick, hard glance to Sarah.
"I didn't tell them. They figured it out. I just confirmed it." Sarah said, with a little bit of noticeable remorse.
"The winning team gets a whole bunch of gift cards to local restaurants and shops. And the winning costumed team gets gift cards too." Jasmine announced.
"Well, I guess we better win otherwise you guys all owe me big time," Lauren said eventually letting a smile loose on her face.
"Hey Marie!" Stephanie yelled out. "We needed a 6th player so I recruited my friend, Marie to play with us."
Marie walked up in the same pencil skirt and blouse combo. She was almost 6 feet tall and looked like she did cross fit every day. "Nice to meet you ladies."
Donna handed her a pair of glasses and the group was ready. There was a match currently going on between a student group at the school and a team from the local animal shelter. Lauren looked over at the bracket that was posted and saw there were 8 teams competing. 2 matches were already complete, so she guessed that someone from her group had negotiated a later start time for their match. They were going to be playing against members of the local fire department. "That could be good. Some nice bodies to look at." Lauren thought to herself.
Donna grabbed Lauren's arm, "come on, we have to get our picture taken. We take one before and one after and our costumes get judged from those pictures." Lauren put on her fake glasses and followed the group.
The ladies lined up in their business attire. Lauren hadn't realized it but they were all wearing heels like the ones Lauren wore. This had clearly been planned out. She might need to start varying up her wardrobe. They took the picture and some of the ladies handed their phones over to get their own shot of everyone clean.
The current match ended with the student group winning. Lauren looked at the groups leaving the court. Almost everyone was covered from head to toe. She quickly realized that she would be ruining another pencil skirt today, but maybe that was a good thing.
She looked across at the team they would be playing and was a little disappointed. She saw only 3 guys and 3 girls. 2 of the guys looked like "office-type" guys, but at least the other guy looked muscular and like the "real" fireman she was hoping for. "Got to make sure I introduce myself to him." She said out loud.
Marie heard her and laughed. "You and everyone else..."
It was time to get on the court and into the mud. Luckily for Lauren she saw everyone in her group take off their heels before getting in the mud. She stepped into the mud in her bare feet and it came up to just under her knees. It was really deep.
Everyone was laughing about how deep it was. Stephanie was leaning on Marie when Marie just pushed her down. Stephanie fell face first into the mud. She got up laughing and was ready to retaliate when they heard the ref blow the whistle. It was time to start the game.
The fire department served first and the game was on. As far as Lauren knew, she and probably Marie were the only ones she knew played volleyball in high school. Nobody had ever said anything about it before and she could tell by the way Marie set herself up and got herself into position it was pretty obvious that she had played competitively before.
Lauren started the game in the back row and all of the action stayed away from her at the start. It wasn't long before Donna, Jasmine, Sarah, and Marie had all fallen into the deep mud. The game was back and forth with a lot of faults and hitting the ball out of bounds on returns. It was Lauren's turn to serve and as she served, mud splattered all over the front of her blouse. The guy she was watching on the other team dove and hit the ball back over the net right towards Lauren. She reached for it, came up short, and the ball hit the mud, splashing her entire front with mud.
"Come on Lauren! Move to the ball! Are you afraid of the mud?" Stephanie yelled at her.
Then Lauren's competitive drive took over. All of those years of competitive volleyball finally paid off. She learned how to move her legs through the deep mud and managed to win several points on her own, or by setting up Marie for a hard spike.
The fire department did not have anyone with volleyball experience and it showed when Lauren and Marie took the game over. They played to 15 and the final score ended up at 15-8. When the game was over, both teams walked to the net to shake hands and by the time Lauren got there, the guy she had eyed was already out of the mud. "I got you covered, Lauren," Marie said. "I told him you'd like to get to know him better. He said he'd get your number before he left."
"Thanks." Lauren responded. As she turned back around to head to the back of the court she saw all of her group looking at her. Everyone in the group was covered from head to toe in mud. They looked pretty hilarious. It was at that point Lauren realized she had never had to dive or fall to reach a ball. She had mud on her blouse from hitting the ball, but other than her legs from the knees down, she was fairly clean.
"Is this what you want?" And with that, Lauren dove head first into the mud towards her teammates. The mud swallowed her head, making everything go black. She then rolled over on her back before Stephanie pulled her from the mud.
"Yep, if you didn't do it, we were going to do it for you," Stephanie said laughing as Lauren was now covered in the most mud of any of them.
"Time for a picture, ladies," Donna shouted as she got out of the mud.
Amazingly, all but Marie and Stephanie still had their glasses on. Almost all of them, except for Jasmine had unbuttoned or lost the top button of their blouses, revealing a better view of their cleavage. The photographer took the picture and then the same ladies ran for their phones to get a picture for themselves. A few minutes later they were done with pictures and waiting for the next match to start. "What do we do now? Do we just sit here covered in mud?" Lauren asked.
"There's a portable shower over on the other side by the big tree. I saw some of the people from the last match go over there." Jasmine responded.
Lauren led the group over as she definitely needed to rinse off some of the mud that she had dived into. As she walked she realized that in spite of everything she was having a good time with her team, but she was a little worried about what Sarah had told them. She would need to follow up on that later.
Lauren stood under the shower head and Donna turned it on and the water was really cold. It didn't help that Lauren had decided to wear the white top today, but she felt like her nipples were piercing through her bra and blouse. Once she got used to it, it felt good to rinse off all of the mud. She stood there a minute under the water, when she heard Sarah yell out, "Ok, shows over, the rest of us want to a turn to rinse off." And Lauren realized that she was getting a good amount of looks from men sitting around in the area, probably for that very purpose.
She stepped out form the shower and Marie handed her a towel. Apparently, someone had the foresight to bring those as well. "Here you go. Chris is over there," Marie said as she pointed over by the parking lot. He had already rinsed off and was standing there in a tight t-shirt and jeans.
"Oh my. I better get over there." Lauren walked over to him, trying to look like she wasn't cold from the water, and dirty from all of the mud. She thought she probably looked ridiculous but maybe this how "meet cutes" really work. "Hi, my name is Lauren."
"I'm Chris. Good game out there. Looks like you've played volleyball before."
"Not in the mud until today, but I was all district in high school." She said with a big grin.
"Would you like to get a drink sometime?"
She couldn't take her eyes off of his big pecs and arms. "Sure, sounds good to me." and with that she gave him her number and he said he had to get back to the station as he was working tonight.
"Talk to you soon," he said as he got into his truck.
It was probably a combination of things, but she was definitely turned on right now. "I'll be thinking about you tonight in my bed." Lauren said out loud.