visible muscle tone as did her torso and thighs.
“Okay, let me get dressed and we’ll sort this out.” She started rummaging around for clothes in the sundry piles littering the room. She looked at Shannon. “Well, which pile is clean or cleaner?”
It appeared to Anne that Hilton came up here to relax and just took off whatever she was wearing, which was why she had no clue as to its condition.
Shannon sniffed both piles and then barked, indicating which pile was clean. Hilton plucked off a T-shirt and a pair of black jeans. She got dressed quickly. Anne noticed that Hilton studiously avoided her gaze. Either she was embarrassed about her lack of clothing or her laundry situation.
“Come on,” Hilton said.
“What are we going to do?”
51
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“Find my Palm Pilot, which I’m hoping is in the bathroom with my knapsack. It has all my codes to get the computer to stop the termination. I have a timer set within the termination program, which gives us a little time, but the process has already started. I built in periods of rest so the person who violated the program has the option for negotiation.”
Liz and Shannon followed them out of the room. “I think I’ll go downstairs and try and tidy up a bit,” Liz said.
“Great idea. Maybe Jessie can help,” Hilton replied.
Anne saw the look that Hilton gave her. Anne smiled, thinking it was too late. She’d already seen most of what was out there.
She’d had wild moments in her life. Being thirty-nine, shortly to be forty, did not automatically make one stodgy.
“I don’t know. She seems to have gone missing with the com-mittee chairwoman of Queer Nation. Something about flyers,” Liz said as she scuttled down the stairs.
Anne followed Hilton to the bathroom.
“There you are,” Hilton said. She stepped over a young woman’s half-naked body that lay nestled between the legs of another woman. Hilton grabbed her knapsack, rustled around inside it and pulled out her Palm Pilot. She kissed it. “Thank God.” She began scrolling through her programs looking for the codes.
“Hilton?”
“Yes,” Hilton said, obviously distracted.
“There are people fornicating in your bathroom.”
Hilton looked at the woman and her playmate. “Oh, shit!” She grabbed Anne’s arm and whipped her around. “Jessie, couldn’t you have picked a better spot?”
Jessie looked up from kissing the woman’s torso. “Sorry. We just got caught up in the moment.”
Hilton sighed heavily. “I found the codes. I had to put them in my address book using a series of fake phone numbers that when properly deciphered comprise the sequence necessary to stop the program and start the restoration process.”
52
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Anne took a deep breath. “I promise never to touch it again.”
“You’re forgiven. Now, let’s go and see if we can fix it.” Hilton led Anne downstairs. Her cell phone rang. She answered it on the third ring. “What did you say?” she screamed over the music.
They entered the kitchen. Liz and Hilton stood looking at each other while holding their cell phones.
“I said don’t bring her down here. Belinda is doing her circus tricks again.”
All three of them turned around to see Belinda, a woman with the largest breasts Anne had ever seen, giving out whipped cream and white Russian shots. Anne watched as she sprayed her breasts with Redi-Whip and then wedged a shot glass between her breasts.
A young woman with dyed pink hair dove into her cleavage and took the shot of liquor. The woman turned around to address the admiring crowd and spied Hilton.
“Hilton, they told me you were busy.” She grabbed Hilton by the waist and pulled her close. She kissed her deeply, smearing whipped cream over both their faces.
“Does she have to do that in front of me,” someone else screeched from the corner of the room.
Belinda gave Shannon a fingerful of whipped cream.
“No
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