This is a prequel to Joe Doe's "The Worst Part is the Waiting." Arty is an excellent writer in several genres; his clever pastiches of Joe Doe represent only one portion of his ablities. Check out /~arty/stories/index.html FOX AND CHICKENS by Arty THE SHERIFF IS AT THE LOCAL COLLEGE WITH A "JANE DOE" SEARCH WARRANT SIGNED BY JUDGE SEARCH'EM. THE LOCAL BUSINESSWOMAN OF THE YEAR LUNCH IS BEING HELD TODAY. HOW MANY CHICKENS WILL BE "PLUCKED"? The Sheriff couldn't believe his luck. Judge Search'em had sent him to the local college with a "Jane Doe" search warrant and instructions to search every female on campus who wasn’t a student or a member of the faculty. "Make sure you strip 'em down to the bare and make 'em squirm," the judge had said. Well, the judge could be sure he'd be doing that, the Sheriff thought, gleefully. Of course, he'd have to adhere to some of the proprieties since he wasn't on his 'home turf,' but then the two female deputies he'd brought along with him to do the cavity searches seemed to enjoy strip-searching beautiful women almost as much as he did. Perhaps now was the time to institute the 'double-check' policy that the judge had suggested for searches conducted 'in the field.' "You have ta make sure ya haven't missed anythin'," the judge had said in his best 'good old boy' phrasing. The Sheriff knew that he had studied law at Harvard, and his normal accent was clipped to the point of Englishness. Still, the Sheriff thought to himself, you have to admire his dedication. Pulling himself from his reverie, he surveyed the group of women that he and his deputies had managed to whittle the original group down to. To a woman they were all young, attractive, and very nervous. One of them was talking on a cell phone. "I don't care what you have to do, Ashley, just get me out of this!" The woman finished speaking and closed her 'phone with a snap. Suddenly the door to the sports hall was kicked open with a bang, and two male deputies struggled in, each carrying a pile of milk crates. "The kitchen staff let us have these, Boss, but they said they needed them back before tomorrow," one of the deputies said, as he dropped his load of crates in front of the nervous women. The second deputy did the same, and once more the women jumped at the loud noise. "Ladies, if I can have your attention, please?" The women turned to look at the Sheriff. "If you'd all like to form a line and come pick a crate we can get started.” "What's going to happen?" one of the women asked. "Well, first you're going to form an orderly line and pick up a crate." The Sheriff smirked. "After that!" she said, waspishly, her exasperation overcoming her nervousness slightly. "Oh! Afterwards. Well, why don't we leave that as a little surprise?" The woman took a breath to respond.... "I mean, where would we be without our little surprises?" the Sheriff cut her off. "Now, enough chat, just pick up a box like your friends here and line up over there on the centre-line!" The women collected their milk crates and walked timidly to the centre-line of the basketball court that was marked out on the floor. "Spread out! Shoulder width apart; just like you see in the boot-camp movies." The women shuffled sideways and looked around nervously. Now that they were physically separated, everything seemed that bit more scary. "Okay, ladies, we'll start nice and easy. Just take off your shoes and put them in the crate that you have in front of you; then drop your purse in there, too; while we're at it you can put your jewellery in your shoes so it don't get lost." A collective gasp came from the women. "You can't mean you're going to search us here?" the woman who'd been talking on the 'phone objected. "Well, we can do it here or down the station." (The women relaxed; it looked like they could at least choose to do this in private.) "But, obviously, if we go down to the station, you'll have to be arrested and processed." (Things weren't looking so rosy.) "And you'll have to be strip-searched as part of this." (Definitely not looking rosy at all.) "Obviously it will all take a lot longer...." He looked at the clock. With a click, the minute hand moved from 2:00pm to 2:01pm. The woman with the 'phone seemed to be have chosen herself as the spokeswoman. "I suppose if it means we can get this over and done with, we can do it here." She looked at her fellow sufferers, who all seemed to nod in agreement. The Sheriff pounced; grabbing a clipboard, he thrust it towards the woman. "Well, in that case, you won't mind signing this here form saying you agree to be searched here and not have to go through all the trouble of being processed at the police station an' all?" This was just too easy, thought the Sheriff, as first one and then another of the women signed his forms. The threat of being strip-searched at the police station seemed to have driven the capacity for rational thought from their minds. "Thank you, ladies. Now if you will all take off your jackets, blouses, and skirts or trousers and put them in the milk crate." "What! I thought you said...." "But we signed...." "You can't do this...." "QUIET!" The excited babble from the women stopped. Into the silence the Sheriff read from his clipboard. “I, the undersigned, do hereby consent to be searched by Sheriff J. Doe in a manner and at a location of his choosing...." As the Sheriff droned on, the meaning of the legal jargon slowly leaked into the women's awareness. They had signed away their constitutional rights and agreed to the Sheriff searching them any way he pleased! Finally, he finished, and the women looked aghast as the realisation dawned that the Sheriff had hoodwinked them. "Now, you can do this the easy way...." He leered at the women. "Or you can have me and my deputies 'assist' you out of your clothes." One of the women moaned in submission and took off her jacket and dropped it into the milk crate. The other women started to follow suit. One by one, they took off their outer clothing. As they did so, the Sheriff sauntered up and down the line making appreciative comments. The ten women stood in a line, shivering and nervous. There they were in their bras and panties in the centre of the large hall. What was going to happen next? Would they really have to strip naked in front of the Sheriff and his deputies? "Let's all take off our bras and put them in the crates, please." One by one, each of the women unclasped her bra and did as she was asked. The hall was air-conditioned, and, very quickly, there were twenty nipples showing hard and erect as they were exposed to the cool air in the hall for the first time. As each of them dropped her bra into the crate, she wrapped her arms around herself in order to cover her breasts and also to try to keep warm. The Sheriff noticed this and decided to give them some respite. Turning to one of his deputies, he said, "It's a little cold in here. See if you can get the place warmed up a little, will ya?" Then he turned back to the women, and they steeled themselves for the inevitable. "Now take off your panties and put them in the crate, too." There were a few quiet moans and some inchoate pleas, but eventually the ten shivering women were standing naked in front of the Sheriff. He noted that they all stood in the classic embarrassed nude female stance of one arm across the breasts and one hand slipped between the legs. He grinned a fox-like grin. "Well, while we're waiting for the hall to be warmed up, we'll have to make sure that you get warmed up some other way." He appeared to think deeply about this. "I know!" he said, in mock surprise. "How about a few exercises." The Sheriff motioned to the two female deputies. "These two deputies will lead you through a few exercises to warm you up and to loosen anything that you might be hiding." The two female deputies stood up from where they were sitting and sauntered over to the line of naked women. The older of the two spoke, "Let's get started, shall we? I mean we can't have you all catching a cold, can we?" She smiled broadly. "Okay! Stand up! Arms by your sides!" Almost involuntarily, the women did as they were told. Now they stood exposed to the Sheriff and his deputies. Some of the women blushed when they realised this and started to cover up. "Enough of that!" the stentorian command rang out. "Now, legs wide apart, ladies!" Slowly the women slid their feet apart. All of them were blushing furiously by now. By common consent, they stopped when their feet were about shoulder-width apart. The deputy wasn't satisfied. "You can do better than that! Wider! NOW!" This last word was shouted, and the women jumped and jerkily spread their legs so that their feet were much more widely spread. The deputy walked down the line inspecting the women, who were all breathing heavily as their nervousness increased. The younger of the two deputies now stood in a similar pose, but, as she was wearing clothes, she was a lot more comfortable with her position than any of the ten naked women. "Now, just do what my colleague is doing, and we'll all get on famously." The other deputy lowered herself into a squat. Even clothed, it looked quite obscene, but doing it naked...! "Stop staring and get squatting! Let’s see those pussies down on the floor, shall we?" Slowly, ever so slowly, the women squatted down. The position exposed their sex to everyone who cared to look, and everyone did, indeed, care to look. The young deputy kept them squatting for what seemed like ages, and then she raised herself back to a standing position. "Now let's do that ten times quickly, shall we?" The women stared in horror. "Stop dawdling and get on with it! One! Two!" As she counted, the ten women squatted and stood. Each time they squatted, their pussy-lips opened, and the cool air of the hall was admitted to their most private depths. By the time the ten repetitions were done, the women were all blushing crimson, and a light sheen of perspiration could be seen on their heaving breasts. The deputy turned to the Sheriff. "I think they're ready for their cavity searches, Boss." "Let 'em do another ten to keep 'em warm while we get set up." The women groaned in shame as they heard this exchange, but were powerless to do anything about it. Whilst the deputy led them in a second set of ten squats, the Sheriff had spied a couple of picnic tables that had been stacked out of the way behind the seating. With a couple of male deputies to each table, it was the work of only a few minutes to get them lined up in front of the naked, squatting ladies as they grunted their way through the last squats. "Okay! That's enough of that." At this juncture, the door to the hall banged open, and the deputy returned from his errand to warm up the hall. He pointed up at the large temperature display. Everyone looked up and saw that the temperature was 68. As they looked, the eight changed to a nine. "I had them set the air-conditioning to 75, is that all right?" "That’s just dandy!" The Sheriff turned to the women, who were still panting from their exertions. "Please collect your milk crate and put it on the table in front of you." Each woman bent and picked up her milk crate. They each looked longingly at the underwear that was resting on top of the clothes piled in the crate. If only they could just put on their underwear, just for a minute.... With great trepidation, they walked to the picnic benches and put the crates down on the table. "Thank you, ladies, not long now. We'll just get you into position, and my two lady colleagues here will check that you ain’t hiding anything you shouldn't, and then you can get dressed and put all this behind you." He smiled at the shocked expressions of the women. "Now, just kneel up on the seats, and you can rest your top halves on the table in front of you." He motioned to his deputies, and they came forward to move the crates from the table and place them out of the way on the floor on the other side of the table from the women. He made sure that the women could still see them -- see them, but not touch them -- so near, and yet so far! The Sheriff was an artist, and he was sure that the judge would relish these little details when he recounted his day's work over a beer tonight. He walked behind the women, and, with his nightstick, he briskly smacked each of the women as he spoke. "Let's get those butts up in the air, shall we? Spread those legs wide; my colleagues must have room to work!" In this position, the exposure was just horrific. All of their pussies were visible, and their little butt-holes were shamefully exposed in the harsh lighting of the hall. The wall clock clicked from 2:54 to 2:55, just as the hall door banged open once more. A woman ran breathlessly into the hall. "Stop! Stop! I have a Restraining Order!" Edited by C. Lakewood -Fin- A note: OK, I promise I won't write anymore about this set-up. (Unless I have another idea!)