Recap: Tank and Lula dance, Marie flirts with another couple, and Tank forms a plan for the next night.

Stephanie

I was surrounded on all sides by hot, sweaty, muscular men. Testosterone filled the air, and I could almost hear their heartbeats racing.

Sadly, it was because I was in a surveillance van, rather than the far more interesting activities of the previous night. The van would have been cosy if it had been filled with normal people, but with me, Ranger, Tank, Lester, Bobby, Silvo, and Hector all in a rolling metal box, I was starting to have real sympathy for anchovies. Nothing smaller than a school bus would have been comfortable. Lula, Marie, and Bobby's date had decided to stand outside rather than face the wall of male flesh, which I could sympathize with, but they were missing out on a great view. Cal and Hal were with them, also having declined to get in touch with their inner pizza topping. We were a couple blocks away from the club so we wouldn't get picked up on any security cameras they had, and so we could talk freely without worrying about being overheard.

"Tank, go over the plan one more time." Ranger barked. I rolled my eyes. We had gone over it half a dozen times in the conference room earlier today, and again in the SUV on the way down here. But there was no use in complaining.

"Silvo stays in the van near the back monitoring communications while the eight of us enter the club and keep an eye out for Williams. Hector stays in the SUV near the entrance to the sex shop. Cal and Hal will enter the store once Silvo tells them we are on our way there. All four couples will take turns hitting on Williams until he takes interest in one, making sure to space out their time and to act as natural as possible. We don't want him to get suspicious, but we also don't know his tastes and what he'll go for."

Lester pulled out a brown paper grocery bag from behind a console.. "Ladies, pretend to be tipsy enough to go for anything. And if we need a quick distraction, fake tripping on something might get his eyes away from whoever is coming up behind him." He pulled out four bottles, two Jack Daniels, two Captain Morgan's. "These have iced tea in them, get them mixed with something at the the bar so they don't smell odd. That way you can look like you are knocking them back without losing your edge."

"Lester, how many booze bottles do you generally have at your apartment?" Marie asked, looking like she might be worried she was dating a lush.

"Just a couple! I got some new ones and poured the alcohol into various containers. Didn't want to waste it. But if Ella goes into my apartment to clean, she might get knocked out by the fumes. I ran out of closable tupperware, ended up putting it into all my pots and pans. The place will smell like a bar for weeks."

"Focus." Ranger said, reverting to his standard single-word commands.

"We have a decent mix in appearance. His wife has brown hair, so that may be his type. Stephanie and Susan match that description."

Susan! That was her name.

"Stephanie looks, ummmm" Tank was struggling a bit with how to describe my outfit.

"Wholesome but slutty?" I suggested, as I swear he turned a shade darker. Could Tank really blush?

"Right." he agreed, averting his eyes from the red teddy I was wearing. I was trying to copy the outfits I'd seen the night before, and this seemed to fit the bill. I'd considered the crotchless one I'd worn with Ranger in the shower in King of Prussia when I was recreating the time he'd come to rescue me, but had chickened out. Also, it seems we had done some damage to it, as it had a few more holes than it had started out with.

"And I fit the bill if he has kinkier tastes." Susan spoke up from outside the van. She was dressed like a dominatrix, with a leather bustier, a riding crop, and spiky boots that might violate the club's no-weapons policy. She would have looked similar to me if she had been in casual clothes, but at the moment she looked terrifying in a way I never could, unless you count first thing in the morning before I'd had coffee or brushed my hair.

"I bet he likes big, beautiful black woman. Those skinny guys always go for BBBWs like me." Lula said with her usual confidence. She was once again testing the very limits of spandex, a few inches shorter than she usually wore it. This meant her outfit looked like she was wearing very stretchy ribbons more than clothes.

"And Marie covers the blonds and redheads." Lester said, grinning at her strawberry blonde hair. I was a little surprised she had come with us again, but here she was.

When she had shown up to the meeting this morning I'd pulled her away to try to explain that I wasn't a threat to her and Lester, or at least that's what I tried to say before breaking out in a babble worth of my brother-in-law.

After 30 embarrassing seconds she put a hand on my arm. "Stephanie, it's alright. You warned me before I went out with him that he was a player. I knew you both had feelings for each other. Lester is fun, but I'm not planning on spending the rest of my life with him. It was something that obviously needed to happen, and now it has. But we need to catch this asshole Williams, and me being there makes that easier."

I wasn't sure I would have reacted nearly as well if I had been her. No, scratch that, I knew I wouldn't have reacted that well if Ranger had been in that room with another woman. On the other hand, if I had only known Ranger a couple of weeks, maybe I wouldn't have minded that much.

With all the plans finalized, did a sound check on the wires all of us were wearing, then we piled back into the cars and drove to the club. Cal, Hal, and Silvo muttered a bit about not getting to go into the club. Hector presumably didn't care much. I'd seen a lot of women who were playing with other women, but no men playing with other men. There wouldn't be nearly as much for him to look at.

We arrived in a couple of minutes, and for the second time in 24 hours I stood in front of the plain entrance, ready to enter the dark club. The parking lot was more full than the night before, and I started to get excited. I just wasn't sure if it was nerves, or the thrill of the hunt that was coming. Ranger opened the door, and I stepped in.