Second Act Reveal (Literature)

 “It’s never over,” Luna’s voice began in a sultry whisper before gaining  power, “until we dance our last...” She strut about her opposite lead  as the music began to pick up, and she broke into the song with an  unmatchable vivacity, her words emboldened by the blasting of the brass  section and pounding of the percussion. This was the centerpiece song of  the play, and she was clearly ready to crush it.

From off-stage,  Candice watched what she could with a feeling close to stupefaction.  Luna was putting on an absolute talent showcase, commanding the  attention of the audience, but Candice couldn’t help but indulge a sense  of selfish pride in how well the production was faring. Stagecraft did a  lot of hard work designing no less than half a dozen backdrops and  twice as many props, with Candice leading them and making them sweat  more than they otherwise would have. The work had been well worth it.  Candice hugged her manager’s clipboard tighter as Luna kicked the song  into gear, her lilting voice beginning to swell with growing emotion.  Candice had no idea Luna was such a performer. She made the sets Candice  had designed come to life.

But still, Candice couldn’t feel  entirely content. She instinctively moved her head on a swivel, checking  over her shoulder and darting her gaze at every small noise and twitch  of shadows backstage. It had been a whole week without her suffering any  stripping or public humiliation, mostly thanks to Hannah having gone on  a vacation to visit universities. Throughout the week, Candice couldn’t  help but feel uneasy, distrustful that Hannah was honest in saying she  was really gone a whole week and would be back late Saturday evening,  but the week had passed without any ambushes or surprise appearances.  Still, Candice’s worry only grew with every passing day, and she knew  that Hannah knew of her prominent production role in the school’s fall  musical. If Hannah would want to turn any night into another round of  public exposure for Candice, this would be the one, probably as some  sort of homecoming present for herself. And if it wasn’t her doing the  dirty work, she had plenty of cronies to sic on Candice in her absence.  As much as Candice wanted to lose herself in the performance, she stayed  vigilant, though only partly for any foul play. She was, after all,  still working, and couldn’t miss her cues.

Luna swept into the  song’s chorus. That’s a cue! Snapping back into focus, Candice darted to  the ropes beside the curtains and carefully selected the one which made  the fake clouds rise up into the rafters, a representation of Luna’s  character opening herself up emotionally. She quickly pulled the rope on  the pulley to make them rise out of the scene. Just in time. Candice  wiped her brow and checked the clipboard in what little light could  reach the sides of the stage. Only a few more scene transitions left in  the show, the next one not until the song ended.

Since she didn’t  need to be near the ropes for a while, Candice inched her way  backwards, back towards the wall, instinctively hiking her pale grey  sweatpants up a bit higher over her hips. The ropes were bound to be  involved if any plays were to be made against her that night, and with  her back to the wall, Candice had eyes on all possible approaches.  Excessively paranoid? Perhaps. But so long as she left the evening with  as much clothing as she had began it with, it didn’t hurt to be careful.  It reduced Candice’s sight of the show to a sidelong sliver, but it did  nothing to disempower Luna’s powerhouse vocals as they rose with the  song’s tempo, reverberating around the backstage space in beautifully  eerie echoes. Smiling, Candice closed her eyes and swayed to the song,  her clipboard her dance partner. She twirled with Luna’s careful notes  going up and up and up until she could have sworn glasses in the  audience would have shattered. If only she could sing like that. For the  time being, Candice could only dreamily sway back and forth to the  music.

A ‘click’ stopped the swaying. Candice’s movements had  gotten too vigorous, and she accidentally backed into something. She  wheeled around. It was a button, one of the half dozen on the wall wired  to the backdrops suspended above the stage. One of them, the kitchen  backdrop from the previous scene, gave a creak before starting to  descend. Oh no no no no no! Candice slapped the button again and again,  but it wouldn’t bring the backdrop back up until it first finished  lowering. Luna continued her song, but her big moment was coming up  while the wrong set was coming down!

Candice dropped her  clipboard and sprang into action towards the pulleys to find the one  automatically lowering the backdrop. Candice quickly identified the  moving rope and gripped it, digging her heels into the ground to try and  stop it from lowering. Clenching her teeth and beginning to sweat,  Candice pulled and pulled to keep the rope from moving more, her  strength just enough to cause the backdrop to grind to a halt. She held  on for dear life, her hands burning over the rope’s coarse fibers as  they strained against her hold. Candice swore she was on the verge of  blacking out when the pulley abruptly slackened. She had held on long  enough that the automation had ended, allowing her to manually raise the  backdrop back into its locked position up top. Candice wiped her brow.  That was too close! Luna’s sweet song had gone interrupted. Candice had  saved the show from her own blunder. Sighing with relief, Candice took a  step back towards the wall…

…only to step onto the clipboard she  had dropped, which promptly slid out from under her foot. Candice  yelped and tumbled back, landing hard on her backside. But her stinging  butt wasn’t the main problem. As she fell, Candice had accidentally  grabbed and pulled down on two pulley ropes, accidentally sending two  more hooks lowering from the rafters.

Candice quickly stood and  glanced up at the rafters. The clouds she had just raised were lowering  back into the scene. The other pulley was moving, but Candice couldn’t  see what it was attached to. Must be behind the current backdrop, she  reasoned. For now, the main problem was going to be those clouds.  Luckily, the clouds were much lighter than the backdrops, meaning  Candice didn’t have to work as hard to stop their descent. After they  quickly came to a halt, Candice waited a moment. The song went on, and  the audience was still quietly rapt under Luna’s spell. Another close  call avoided. Sighing at her clumsiness, Candice began to raise the  clouds back up to the rafters.

After just one pull, however,  Candice froze, a cold, narrow sensation prodding at the small of her  back. The other rope that had lowered, she turned and discovered, had no  set dressings or decorations attached, just a metal hook resting at her  lower back, right where a hint of her panties showed. Just Candice’s  luck, the bright pink waistband was snagged on the hook. This could get  really bad. Candice took one hand off the rope pulley for the clouds,  gently reaching back to try and ease her underpants off the hook. The  one hand’s strength wasn’t enough, however, to keep the clouds aloft,  and they began to creak lower again. Candice snapped her other hand back  to make the clouds stop, sighing and slowly raising them back into  their place in the rafters. When they locked into place, however, the  rope with its hook poking at Candice’s lower back began to rise back up  to join them.

Desperately, Candice let go of the clouds' rope and  threw her hands behind herself to yank her waistband off the hook, but  by the time she acted, it was too late. The hook pulled Candice’s  underpants up with itself as it rose, the fabric shooting up between her  butt cheeks and private parts. Candice had to suppress her cry out as  the hook continued to rise, yanking the panties further and further up  her sensitive spots, pulling her up and up until her feet left the  ground. Candice kicked and kicked as she continued to rise, pulling and  pulling at her underwear with no hope of relieving the vicious feeling  of fabric stretched into places it shouldn’t reach. At least bullies  like Hannah could relent between yanks! This was one constant,  unremitting force up against her underside!

Candice couldn’t help  kicking, even when it led to her sweatpants loosening their hold on her  hips, dropping bit by bit down her thighs. Candice tried to reach down  and pull them up, but she kept abruptly returning her fingers to her  crotch, desperate for what little relief she could get from the massive  wedgie. Finally, the pants slipped from her calves and glided to the  floor below. The hook finally shuddered to a stop, but the pull between  Candice’s privates and cheeks was no less strong.

Trying to keep  her mind clear - as difficult as that was with her panties digging up  her butt crack, stretched as thin as they could be without breaking -  Candice thought to climb up the rope to reach the lighting catwalks. As  embarrassing as it would be to streak across them without pants, past  any lighting and tech crew up there, at least it would keep her offstage  and minimize humiliation. It was nearly impossible, however, for  Candice to pull herself around and gain purchase on the rope while she  hung with her back to it. She had no means of lifting herself up, and  hanging by her underwear kept her too low to properly gain a hold. She’d  have to climb a different rope and hope she would move high enough her  panties would unhook themselves. There was one hanging pretty close by,  holding the clouds. Candice slowly began to swing herself towards it,  stopping almost immediately when the movement caused her panties’ fabric  to rub particularly strongly in particularly intimate spots. No no no,  Candice repeated in her mind. Ignore the feeling. This isn’t arousing.  This is survival. Reaching up and behind herself on the rope wedgieing  her to alleviate a bit of the contact between her crotch and the  thinning fabric of her panties, Candice again began to swing herself  forward, reaching out and nearly grabbing the other rope. Another swing  brought her closer, and another closer still…

Applause. A  bewildered Candice snapped her gaze to below, to Luna and her costar  stalking opposite directions offstage, the lights dimming, the cue for  the next transition. Candice was in a worse spot than she had first  realized, having missed her cue on top of everything else. She swung off  rhythm, and the effort to correct her trajectory combined with the  knowledge she was holding up the show to make her more and more  flustered, unable to properly calm down and aim for the rope. She ended  up spinning around and around in the air, losing her grip and dropping  back to hanging by her panties, having them shoot back up between her  butt cheeks and private parts, the sensation confusing her even more.  Then another, more abrupt sensation joined the mix, one Candice barely  had time to react to by shielding her face: Candice slammed headlong  into one of the hanging backdrops, accidentally breaking through to the  other side.

Candice had broken a hole right through the backdrop,  her upper body dangling out the back while her lower body dangled from  the front. Candice struggled to lift her head, but upon doing so, felt  something give way behind her. With a sigh of nervous dread, Candice  felt the hook from which she had been dangled release its grip on her,  fabric suddenly teased out from her butt and crotch. The feeling of  immediate relief was replaced by more dread, however, with fabric racing  down her thighs, across her calves, and finally off her feet. Stifling  her groan, Candice hung completely bottomless, her panties no doubt  stretched beyond their limits and gracefully floating to stage far  below.

Not really many options to go off of. Candice was way too  high in the air to try anything risky, and one gentle movement told her  that her hips were stuck on the other side of the backdrop. She couldn’t  slide out even if she tried, much less turn around and worm out. She  couldn’t even reach her arms back to cover her now-exposed booty, its  sting from the extreme wedgie gradually fading. She’d have no choice but  to wait for the show to end, then call out to be let down. She’d really  have to streak then, grabbing her pants and undies while making a break  for the parking lot before anyone got too much of an eyeful off her  bare derriere, but there wasn’t much to be done without ruining the  show.

The sound of a pulley getting ready to move made Candice  freeze. What backdrop had she punched through? Unable to see from the  back, Candice instead examined the one in front of her as best as she  could: dirty countertops, dark vinyl seats, half an apple pie in a  container. The diner. The diner was one of the last sets in the lineup.  The one directly in front of it was the beach backdrop… which would be  called down right after the big musical number. But she wasn’t down  there to summon it. That didn’t stop the backdrop in which Candice  helplessly hung from shuddering and finally lowering. Candice’s guts  felt like they fell out. Someone from stagecraft must have come to pick  up the cue!

Candice pushed and pushed to try and get herself out  of the backdrop, but just couldn’t fit her hips through in time. The  lowering of the rope got louder and louder, but it wasn’t just the ropes  of her backdrop; the previous backdrop was rising back to its place in  the rafters. All of a sudden, Candice’s eyes went wide as the rising  backdrop met her bare butt, the friction rubbing her cheeks red. Candice  squirmed and squirmed to get free, to fight the discomfort and kick off  the previous backdrop, but it quickly vanished above, and the bright  lights of the stage shone behind Candice. Candice froze like a deer in  the spotlights, both sets of cheeks red as she heard the audience gasp.  Candice’s bare ass hung on full display to an audience of hundreds. As  the backdrop set to the ground, the gasps turned to laughter.

Candice  pushed her hands into her temples, groaning, before realizing that the  audience didn’t know whose ruby-red cheeks were hanging out. If she  managed to wiggle out and dart backstage, she could find her fallen  pants and panties and make it out of the auditorium before becoming  another topic of gossip. Bringing up one foot to try and obscure her  butt, Candice kicked out with the other and tried to push herself  through the backdrop. Her cheeks rammed against the backdrop around them  again and again, too big to squeeze through, each bit of effort making  them jiggle and rock against one another, sending surges of renewed  laughter through the audience - as well as making her identity known to  students familiar with Candice’s exhibitionist reputation - but Candice  ignored the clamor and focused on working her way free of the backdrop.  She pedaled her feet to try and free herself. Bit by bit the backdrop  began to give…

Unfortunately, right as it began to give, the  backdrop began to rise up again. What, why? Was someone thinking they  were helping by hiding her back up there? Candice struggled even harder  to escape, but the give in the material and the sudden jerking movement  of the pulleys pulling made her rock backwards instead of forwards,  finally releasing Candice from the backdrop, but sending her tumbling  onto the stage to land on her rump with a smack that briefly quieted the  auditorium.

Slightly dazed from the fall, laughter gradually  filled in around Candice. Momentarily confused, she stood and turned to  it, only to remember what it was about. Eyes going wide, Candice looked  down at her body. Not only was she bottomless, but the backwards fall  had pulled her out of her hoodie. Candice was left in only a frilly  white bra and sneakers, her bare crotch on full display to the raucous  audience. Yelping, Candice plunged a hand down to cover her privates,  squeezing her thighs together and buckling her knees, and threw an arm  over her ample cleavage.

“Hey Candice,” someone called behind  her. Without thinking, knowing who the voice belonged to and commanded  by its power, Candice turned around to see Luna covering a smile and  pointing at her. “Nice butt.”

That made Candice realize that she  had just turned around to bare her buns to the audience. Their redness  had faded, giving a paler encore of their embarrassed jiggling. Yelping  again and moving an arm from her bra to her butt, Candice tried to race  backstage. What she ended up doing, however, was barreling straight into  Luna’s costar, Minnie, bowling her over and landing on top of her.  Shaking off the impact, Candice swore she heard someone’s muffled voice.  She then gasped as she realized it was Minnie, her face smushed between  Candice’s boobs. Candice scrambled to pick herself off Minnie, tripping  and tangling over her limbs thrashing around, her shouts still muffled  under Candice’s knockers. When Candice finally managed to stand, she was  so flustered that she didn’t even notice her bra becoming unclasped  from Minnie’s flailing attempts at pulling herself upright. Nor did she  notice when the bra was pulled from her body, straps tangled in Minnie’s  fingers. Blocking out the surging applause and laughter, a nude Candice  threw her hands over her butt and sprinted off stage, not noticing her  breasts swinging wild and free. She didn’t notice her state of complete  nudity until she hid behind the curtain and realized her boobs were  uncovered with the rest of her body. They had really seen everything  Candice had, hadn’t they?

As Luna delivered a line to try and  quiet the audience and continue the show, Candice made quick work  streaking back and forth backstage, searching for her fallen articles of  clothing. The only piece she found, however, was the hoodie behind the  broken backdrop as it was lowered back into place. Her sweatpants  weren’t near the pulleys, and her stretched-out panties were nowhere to  be found. The stagecraft student that changed the backdrops must have  found them, and Candice was in no state to check the lost and found,  assuming the student didn’t just keep them. At least her car keys were  still in her hoodie. She scooped up her hoodie from directly behind the  backdrop and cast a quick glance through the hole she had punched to see  most of the audience still in a standing ovation. Minnie unraveled  Candice’s bra from around her fingers, her expression a mix of confusion  and disgust. She threw the undergarment into the audience, where it was  quickly lost. Candice sighed and pulled her hoodie over her body as she  darted back into the wings, pulling down the hem so her crotch was  covered, but her butt was too big to cover the same way. Though it  probably didn’t matter at this point, Candice pulled the hood over her  head too, on the off-chance she might somehow be able to hide her  identity, to hide from being the girl who had just been streaked stark  naked through a school production.

Candice snuck out the  backstage exit door, coming out on the side of the school. She had  parked in the main lot, which was thankfully not too far, but it was  fairly late and fairly cold. As she ran, Candice pulled her hood down  lower and tried to cover her butt with her hoodie, but she couldn’t  cover more than an inch of crack without the front pulling up and  exposing her crotch to the elements, so she just held the fabric over  her crotch and let her backside freely jiggle. At least it was dark,  meaning no one would get a good look at her.

Just as that thought  finished in her mind, Candice froze under the orange haze of a  lamppost. Someone had pulled into the parking spot next to Candice’s  car, and they just exited out the driver’s side, locking their car and  taking a step towards the school before pausing and heading straight to  Candice. Candice pulled her hood lower and her hoodie's hem further  down, erring towards the other parked cars to keep a wide berth from  this stranger.

Not only did it not work, it wasn’t a stranger.  Candice peered up and stumbled back in surprise when she saw it was, in  fact, Hannah, giggling as she approached. She was wearing the hoodie of  one of the universities she had evidently visited, and Candice  sheepishly realized it was the same name as the one on hers. Hannah  laughed and pointed at Candice. “Really, Candice? You couldn’t go one  week without exposing yourself? You really are an exhibitionist by  trade, aren’t you?”

The words snapped Candice back lucid, making  her realize she had let go of her hoodie and was revealing her naked  privates to Hannah. Recovering herself, Candice darted past Hannah,  pulling her hoodie down over her bubble butt as she passed her. Hannah  laughed the whole time as Candice fumbled with her car’s door, in the  process giving Hannah a parting glance of quivering cheeks. “And here I  was worried I’d miss the show!” Hannah jeered as Candice slammed the  door shut. She cranked the radio up as far as it could go to drown out  Hannah’s laughter before she sped off for home. As humiliated as Candice  was, she couldn’t even blame Hannah for this series of misfortune. Life  was hard enough without pranks… this was going to be a rough week  ahead!