Katie had been working as a junior staffer in the district office of the local Congressman, Representative Dennis Randall, for almost a year when his brother Jack, the office manager, called her into his office one Thursday afternoon. “We have a new, very short-term assignment for you,” he explained, “as expected, my brother is going to officially announce his candidacy for the office of President next Monday.” It was no secret to anyone in the office that their boss had his eye on bigger and better things, but the timing of his announcement hadn’t been something staffers at her level had been informed about. Until then.

“That’s exciting! Does my new assignment have something to do with his announcement?” she asked.

“Yes it does,” he said, “I wasn’t joking when I said short term, it’s basically one day of work in the D.C. office. Nothing too complicated, we just need all hands on deck to fill out the crowd so it doesn’t look like nobody is there but the media covering the event. You’ll also be handing out press kits, and helping field what we hope are a lot of phone calls as the day goes on. Not exactly high-level tasks, but they need to be done.”

“I’m glad to help however I can, and since I’ve never actually visited Washington, it is actually kind of exciting.”

“In that case, instead of flying you up Sunday night, if you’d like a bit of time to do some sightseeing, you could leave Saturday morning. The campaign can afford to cover an extra night in a hotel if you’d like,” he offered.

“That sounds great,” Katie replied, “how do I…”

Jack cut her off, telling her all the arrangements would be taken care of. She received flight and hotel reservation emails later that morning.

Saturday morning, the first flight in her itinerary was right on time, the small jet making the short hop to Atlanta in less than 45 minutes as scheduled. Though it had started well, her tightly scheduled itinerary was already running into trouble before she even set foot in terminal C in Atlanta. A series of thunderstorms had begun a crawl up the east coast, delaying her flight to Washington four times, the departure time slipping all the way from 8:15 AM to 2:35 PM.

Resigned to losing Saturday as a day of sightseeing, Katie just wanted to get to Washington and focus on what she could do on Sunday. Having given up on Saturday, it seemed like a cruel joke when her much-delayed flight ended up being canceled entirely just minutes before boarding was about to start.

After an hour and a half in a customer service line waiting to be re-booked, Katie felt like crying when she was told the earliest flight she could be booked on wouldn’t arrive in Washington until early Sunday afternoon. Adding insult to injury, the several thousand other travelers stranded in Atlanta by the ugly weather had filled every hotel room anywhere close to the airport. Her entire weekend plan having been ruined, she had dinner, then picked up some snacks for later, and a book before finishing off her Saturday with a couple of glasses of wine at one of the overcrowded bars in terminal D, her home for the night.

Katie was glad about one thing; her decision to dress for comfort had definitely been a good move. Her comfy t-shirt, large, baggy full-zip hoodie, mid-weight leggings, and crocs wasn’t an outfit likely to impress anyone, but she had to think more restrictive clothes would have been even worse for trying to get some sleep while curled up on the seats at an unstaffed gate. She managed a few fitful hours of rest in the middle of the night after the announcements tapered off and before the various sounds made by the cleaning crew picked up.

Waking up stiff and rumpled a little before 6:00 AM, Katie was startled to see her improvised bedroom was full of other, luckier travelers getting ready to board their flight. She sat up, picked up her shoulder bag, pulled up the handle of her roll-on suitcase, and set out to find some breakfast. One egg sandwich, banana, and coffee later she checked a departing flight monitor to see if her flight was on schedule. “Of course not, why would it be,” she grumbled, seeing the first of what turned out to be three delays. She began to wonder if she would ever get out of this airport, but the delays finally stopped happening. She was in seat 21D, and amazingly enough, airborne a little before 4:00 PM.

Knowing the flight would take less than two hours, she closed her eyes and was sound asleep in a few minutes, her patchy sleep Saturday night making it easy to drop off now. The next thing she was aware of was her fellow passengers moving around the stationary plane and hauling their bags down from the overhead bins. “We’re in Washington already, finally! I can’t wait to get to my hotel, Shower, and crawl into bed.”

Katie’s excitement was short-lived, as she heard the Captain making an announcement: “Once again folks, you don’t want to go too far from our gate, we could get cleared to continue on to Washington at any time, and once we do we’ll be pushing back from the gate in just a few minutes.”

“We’re not in Washington?” Katie asked a woman seated next to her.

“I guess you were asleep before,” her seatmate explained, “they told us just before landing that we needed to divert to Charlotte, something about tornadoes in Virginia.”

It took the still drowsy Katie a minute to process the news about the latest complication in her trip; she turned her phone on to check the time. Seeing 6:12 on the screen, she was disoriented enough to be unsure if that was AM or PM until she leaned over to look out a window; the position of the sun was high enough to clear up that mystery, giving her some hope that she might yet make it to Washington in time to get a halfway decent night’s sleep.

Her odds of getting to sleep in a hotel room were looking fairly good around 8 PM when the gate agent announced they were boarding the flight again. Everyone hustled back on board, stowed their bags, and actually cheered when the plane was pushed back from the gate. The plane took its place in the traffic jam leading towards a runway, with the co-pilot periodically announcing their place in the line. Starting at 27th in line, the announcements continued every few minutes; 21st in line, then 18th, then 12th, then 7th.

When Katie heard the pilot start his latest announcement by saying, “Well, folks…”, she knew the news was going to be bad. “A string of thunderstorms is moving into the Washington area, so we’re being held here. We don’t have to go back to the gate yet, so we’ll stay out here for a while and hope for a break in the weather.”

Katie and her fellow travelers spent the next 90 minutes going nowhere, then headed back to the terminal, the pilot’s apologies drowned out by a chorus of boos. The pilot explained that the crew had been working long enough that even if they were cleared to take off the duration of the flight would take them beyond the FAA’s limit for how many hours a flight crew can work in one day.

The agent at the gate greeted the weary passengers back from their round trip to the far end of the tarmac and back. Sixty-five grumpy people formed a line as the agent started printing their new boarding passes for a flight scheduled to depart at 5:00 AM.

As late as it already was, and with such an early flight the next morning, Katie resigned herself to another night camping out in an airport. She managed to get some decent barbeque for dinner just before the food court shut down, then settled in for the night in a rocking chair.

Other than waking up stiff and still tired, Katie’s Monday actually started off pretty well. She didn’t sleep through her phone’s alarm, waking at 4:20 as planned. She was onboard and seated by 4:40, and airborne by 4:55. The flight was quicker than advertised, and she was walking through the already bustling terminal at Reagan National by 6:50.

Her morning so far had gone as well as it possibly could, but Katie knew she didn’t have enough time to go to her hotel to clean up and get changed into office-appropriate clothing and still make it to the event at the Capitol anywhere near on time. Since her work assignment was the reason she was here, and she definitely didn’t want to make a first impression on the Congressman’s D.C. staff dressed as she was, she decided to try and find somewhere in the terminal where she could freshen up and get dressed.

“Right after I get some caffeine in me,” she thought, “I don’t want to be known as that ditz who fell asleep during her boss’s speech!” After downing a Starbucks double espresso and wolfing down an egg and spinach wrap, she began hunting for somewhere private to get out of her travel outfit and get dressed for work.

Katie had seen photos of tiny rooms available at some airports for rent by the hour, where a traveler could nap, work on their laptop or just get some quiet while waiting for their flight. “Or change clothes in a secluded space,” she thought. “kind of ironic, the last two nights I probably could have changed clothes right out where I ended up sleeping without anyone even noticing, but now that I actually need to change I’m in way too busy a space to try that!”

After wasting five minutes studying a directory to see if there was any place more suitable for changing her clothes, Katie headed to the first Ladies’ room she saw. The regular toilet stalls seemed kind of small, making undressing and changing clothes awkward, possibly even hazardous. The handicap-accessible stall was way bigger; Katie felt a little guilty about monopolizing the only accessible stall in the room, but not guilty enough to pass up the opportunity to take the large empty space.

Though very spacious, the stall had no shelf space, and just one small hook, which Katie hung her shoulder bag on. Another problem was a door that didn’t latch securely; not wanting to be interrupted in mid-change, she leaned her suitcase up against the door, and was relieved to see that it was heavy enough to keep the door from opening on its own. She knew if someone pushed hard enough she’d be having company, but was pretty sure her current setup was about the best she could do, so she moved on to her next problem.

“Where do I put my clothes,” Katie wondered. The floor wasn’t obviously dirty, but it had a sheen of some sort of smelly cleaning product which she didn’t want on any of her clothes or the inside of her suitcase. She came up with a solution, taking the various pieces of the one work outfit she’d packed out of her suitcase and draping each piece, aside from her shoes, over the top of the toilet stall’s partition. She placed her gray thigh-high stockings, black thong, matching black bra, black and white houndstooth skirt, and a charcoal silk blouse all in a neat row. With her work clothes ready and waiting, she went to work getting out of her travel outfit, thrilled to finally get out of the clothes she’d been wearing for the last 48 hours.

Katie’s traveling clothes had been as comfortable as any outfit could have been, but after two full days wearing the same clothes, she was more than happy to be done with them. She slipped her crocs off and dropped them into the empty main compartment of her suitcase, followed in short order by her socks. Working her way up her body, her leggings were next to be put away.

As she bent over to work her feet out of her bunched-up leggings, she wondered if any of the other women coming and going had noticed the weird little calf, ankle, and foot strip show she was putting on below the bottom edge of the door! “If anyone out there is watching, this should give them something to gossip about,” she thought as she let her panties drop to her ankles, then stepped out of them.

Naked from the waist down, Katie really hoped the stall door stayed put as she started getting her upper body uncovered. She wadded her hoodie up and stuffed it into her suitcase, followed seconds later by her t-shirt. She was particularly glad to finally be freed from her bra; it was normally a comfortable enough item, but it was never intended to be worn for as long as she’d been stuck in it; Katie shoved it into the open suitcase, even as she thought she’d rather dump it in the nearest trash receptacle.

Katie had a brief but vivid fantasy about leaving the stall to dispose of the hated bra in her current state, but with everything she’d been stuck wearing for the last two days stowed away in her suitcase, she smiled and filed the image away to think about later on. She noticed one of her stockings had slipped a bit and grabbed it before it could fall off the partition. Since by now she was ready to start putting clothes on she rolled it onto her left leg and pulled it halfway up her thigh.

Katie opened a small compartment at the front of her suitcase and pulled out a packet of wet wipes and a small deodorant stick. She gave herself as much of a cleanup as the small wipes could accomplish, then applied the deodorant, hoping nobody would be able to smell the effect of her two days of travel. Satisfied she had done what she could to make herself presentable, she turned back to put her toiletries away.

Though she noticed right away that her suitcase wasn’t where it should have been, she didn’t immediately grasp that it wasn’t anywhere inside the stall with her. Distracted by the case of the missing suitcase, she didn’t immediately notice a much bigger problem happening right in front of her. One at a time but in quick succession pieces of her carefully laid out, work outfit were disappearing over the edge of the partition. By the time she noticed what was happening, her remaining stocking, thong, and bra were already gone; before she was able to react her skirt also vanished.

She quickly realized that her blouse was the only piece of her clothing, clean or dirty, still within her reach, and lunged for it. She caught the silk top, but couldn’t pull it to her side of the partition. Whoever had already taken the rest of Katie’s clothing had a firm hold on the dark gray top and was determined to pull it to her side of the partition. Both Katie and her unseen opponent pulled hard, sliding the blouse a few inches one way or the other. Neither was able to get control of it. Eventually they slid it over to a narrow joint between panels of the stall’s wall and the blouse slipped down into the gap. The other woman hesitated, or maybe just gave up, right as Katie pulled hard.

Stumbling backward with the blouse in her hands, Katie had a brief feeling of triumph at having won the tug-of-war, and was relieved to have at least one piece of clothing left; the blouse was fairly long, giving her some hope that it might provide enough cover to get by with, at least long enough to find a shop in the terminal where she could buy replacements for the rest of her work outfit. “Maybe if I can get out there quickly I can find the thief,” she thought, shaking out the much-abused blouse.

Katie got her arms in the sleeves and began buttoning the blouse up, starting at the bottom. She got the lowest button in place easily, but had a problem with the next one higher. The problem was simple but impossible to solve; the button was gone, with nothing but some loose threads to show where it had been. One missing button would have been tolerable, but Katie now saw that she’d already fastened all the buttons still attached to the blouse. “I guess pulling it through that tight gap wasn’t such a good idea,” she thought ruefully. “How am I supposed to get out of here now? I can’t be walking around in Terminal C dressed like this!”

Leaving the privacy of the stall in her current state was unthinkable, but it took Katie only a minute or two to accept the inevitability of doing exactly that. “What other choice do I have, really,” she wondered, already starting to blush. She tugged the blouse’s tails down to cover her Pussy and butt as well as she could, then slung her bag over her left shoulder and pulled it across the open front of her blouse. Taking a deep breath before opening the stall door, she scanned the space one last time, as if she might somehow have just overlooked her suitcase. She stepped out of the stall and headed out of the room.

Pausing to study her reflection at a full-length mirror just outside the Ladies’ room, Katie was horrified to see damage to her blouse she hadn’t noticed in her rush to put it on. There was no way to know whether she or the thief was responsible, but one of them had apparently tried using one of the pockets to hang on to the blouse. The strain had pulled the pocket almost completely off and torn the fabric underneath at the top and both sides of the pocket’s original location, putting most of her right breast on display! She quickly shifted her bag to cover the gap her right nipple was peeking out from, holding it in place with her right hand while using her left hand to hold the front more or less closed.

Once she’d made what adjustments she could to avoid flashing the crowds of people streaming through the terminal, Katie set out for a women’s clothing store she’d noticed on a directory sign when she had been looking for somewhere to change. As she walked, she became aware of people staring at her. “Fair enough,” she thought, “Even without my right boob playing peek-a-boo, I must look like a refugee from a strip club on amateur night!” She knew walking around with one leg bare and the other clad in a thigh-high stocking probably made the gawkers all the more curious, but knowing how much she’d end up showing them if she were to try removing it then and there, she decided to live with the unusual look.

Katie had almost reached the clothing store when she heard a voice behind her shouting, “Miss! Please stop, I need to talk with you!” She ignored the voice at first, but couldn’t ignore the police officer when he caught up with her and repeated his request. She hadn’t even thought about this sort of trouble before, but now guessed someone might have called in to report her unusual behavior. “Where are the rest of your clothes? Are you okay?”

Katie told the officer how she’d come to be practically naked, apologizing more than once even though it hadn’t been her idea. “I’m just trying to get to the Johnston & Murphy store up ahead and buy myself something more appropriate.”

“Well, that does sound like a good idea, but they won’t be open for an hour or two,” the policeman chuckled, “I think you’d better come with me to our office, we have some disposable rain ponchos. Not too stylish, but better than what you’ve got going on right now!”

“Okay, sure,” she replied, still adjusting to the store not being open. “Of course it’s not open yet,” she thought, “it’s only 7:20.” A plastic poncho would be an improvement over what she was dressed in, but wasn’t going to work for going to the Capitol. She walked alongside the policeman, trying to imagine how she was going to explain her morning to her supervisors. The sound of the officer’s radio disturbed her as she tried to picture the reaction the Congressman’s staff might have to her showing up dressed either as she was or wearing a plastic police poncho. Neither option seemed very promising.

The flurry of transmissions on the policeman’s radio about a passenger creating a disturbance at gate 43 made him stop in his tracks. “Stay here, I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said before turning and running towards the disturbance. Katie did as she was told, but after five minutes had gone by she wondered if she should take another stab at finding some clothes she could go to work in; she remembered seeing a line of cabs just outside a nearby entrance and consulted Google maps to see if it might still be possible to make it to work somewhere near on time.

The two trips she looked up looked like, incredibly, she might be able to get where she needed to be well before the 9:00 AM gathering time. She was understandably nervous about venturing out into the world with her minimal attire, but the idea that she might be able to make it to work was enough to get her out the door and in line to catch a cab. Less than three minutes later she was telling her driver her destination, a Target less than 10 minutes away. Despite the rush hour traffic, the driver got her there in the same time Google listed.