Claire and the Veritail
by lodobon

Part 1

Becoming Bubbles.

On Saturday night, she could have chosen to go to Dave's big house party with Elaine and Chelsea. Dave's parties were always fun! Meanwhile, Russel, Steve and Kyle were going to a fancy dinner and reception to honour the robotics prof who they'd been working with.

She was in graduate school, working with a small team on collaborative augmented reality. It was a really cool project that they were all really excited about.

She was 24, she was fit, good looking and smart.

Claire was a nerd and all her friends were nerds. One drunken night, she'd been labelled by Steve as a "hot girl-nerd" and all her friends had agreed that she was probably too hot to hang out with them. They'd joked that some rich jock would eventually swoop in and steal her from their group.

Leon, Ray and Tyrone were on the augmented reality project with her. Her high school friends Elaine and Chelsea were in health sciences working on some horrible goo that people should ingest every morning to live an extra 10 years. And then there was Russel. Claire had a big crush on Russel. He was working with Steve and Kyle on "applying machine learning to optimize sympathetic and amplified oscillations in miniature robotics."

Her friends were interesting, fun people, but none of them were particularly outgoing. That didn't matter much because the nine of them made for a diverse and decently sized group.

Claire hadn't dated anyone in over a year. She had a serious crush on Russel and she was pretty sure he liked her too, but neither of them seemed like they wanted to risk losing each other as friends or disrupting the dynamics of the group.

So given that she could be looking forward to a Saturday night with her friends like any normal, single person her age, Claire asked herself (again!) why she would be spending THIS Saturday night at an investor appreciation event for a sex toy company. A lot of graduate students had part-time jobs to help pay the bills, but most of their jobs didn't involve wearing a dog ear headband, puppy dog face-paint, a collar and a tail... and NOTHING ELSE!

She and six other staff would be role-playing as puppies to demonstrate something called the Veritail at an outdoor reception for several dozen rich older men in suits.

Saturday was still a couple of days away, but Claire was seated naked in the tub in the 2nd floor bathroom of the house that she shared with Elaine, Chelsea and Leon. She was putting lube on a "training" butt plug. She'd never used a butt plug before so she had to get the training one in, then work her way up to inserting the next size up. By the end of that day she had to report back that it was comfortable. They needed to know that she'd be able to keep a plug that size in place for the duration of the event on Saturday.

Claire had never had anal sex. She'd never inserted anything into her bum before. But on Saturday, she'd be circulating through a crowd completely naked, with the butt-plug end of the tail right up inside her rectum.

She reminded herself that nobody was forcing her to do this. She was doing it entirely on her own initiative.

She WANTED to do this.

Why on earth had she agreed to do this?

She would be well paid. She'd been told that with tips, she'd easily clear a thousand dollars. Claire could definitely use the money, sure. But that wasn't the only reason she was doing it.

She had a dirty little secret. Claire had agreed to do this because she was an exhibitionist.

She wasn't the kind of exhibitionist that thrived on the thrill of being caught. She WANTED to be seen.

These cravings had always been there, but they'd really kicked in about six months ago, when she was looking for a part-time job and discovered that the art classes paid people cash to model naked. The idea had immediately excited her. Still, it had taken her 2 months to get up the nerve to sign up.

For Claire, the desire to get naked in front of people tied into fantasies of her being surrounded by a group of men. In her fantasy, the men all had clothes on, they were all around her, leering at every inch of her completely naked body. Sometimes she'd be trying to cover herself up, other times she'd be holding her arms above her head so they could see everything. Then they'd all move closer and start groping her.

That was as far as Claire's fantasy ever got because while alone and naked in her bedroom, maybe fingering herself or grinding on her pillow, imagining the groping would reliably bring her to orgasm. She knew how dirty and perverse her fantasies were. Claire wanted more and more to explore them in real-life situations, but she was desperately afraid that anyone would find out her shameful secret.

If anyone found out that she was posing nude for an art class, she could plausibly say that she was just doing it for the money.

The first time Claire did it, she had felt incredibly vulnerable, terrified and sexy all at once for several days leading up to it. Those feelings had peaked as she removed her robe and took her first position, stark naked with more than 20 people staring right at her.

It was fantastic! She had to work hard to avoid squirming. It was everything she wanted!

But that feeling had only lasted for a few minutes. Pretty quickly it became a bit mundane. The painters were all so professional about it. They weren't leering. They were looking and they were painting.

Claire tried it a couple more times before she realized that this was actually going to make getting naked LESS sexy. And although $50 for a couple of hours once a week was nice, a more lucrative part-time job would be helpful. She approached the professor and, feeling a bit embarrassed, asked: "are there any classes that pay a little more? I'd be willing to do somewhat more explicit poses if needed."

The prof had given her a knowing look. "You know, you're not the first model to ask me that. Some genuinely need more money, but I'm pretty sure most ask because they're more interested in taking off their clothes than they are in what they're being paid."

Claire had blushed intensely when he'd said that and was about to turn away, when the prof added, "as I tell everyone that asks that question, we don't do explicit poses." His face was kind. "I recommend that you gather a few trusted friends and go to the Happy Hideaway on amateur night. That's a nice safe way to scratch that itch and see how far you want to take it."

"They always have cash prizes," he'd added. "You'd have a good chance of winning more doing that than you'll get posing for classes once a week for a month."

"No!" Claire couldn't bring herself to look at him. "I can't... tell people," she'd admitted.

The prof had looked like he was just going to let her go with that, but then he took a moment to consider and said, "you're very good looking. I know a woman who has a model agency of sorts. They do events and I know that they're often asked for models that are willing to be nude. Nude waiting staff and such. I could give you her information and I suppose you could apply."

Claire wanted to flee what had become a very awkward situation, but she so craved more of what she'd tasted leading up to her first nude modelling experience. She knew that it was an admission to say, "yes, please," but she did it anyway and whispered, "thank you," before she left. She hoped she'd never see that prof again.

That's the kind of exhibitionist that Claire was.

In her head, she likened it to liking roller-coasters. It wasn't enough for her to stand at a cliff edge and imagine what it would be like to fall, she wanted to actually feel what it was like to be falling. She wanted to feel what it was like to lose control - without actually losing control.

Claire desperately wanted to be completely naked, exposed and the centre of attention of a group of men, but she didn't want the repercussions of that behaviour. She was also very ashamed of wanting that. A psychiatrist would probably have said how her exhibitionism had its roots in her shame. For Claire, that just meant that her friends and family absolutely couldn't find out. It had to remain a secret.

The agency that the prof had directed her to seemed perfect.

Claire had an interview two weeks later. Ms. Perston immediately made her feel safe and comfortable, so Claire had no problem explaining that, whereas she had no problem with being naked, she didn't want people to see her face.

Lenora Perston was always looking for attractive young women and men that she could call to book for various events, and she usually had several events going every weekend.

Most of Ms. Perston's clients weren't looking for masked staff, but every once in while, she'd have a request. Those tended to be the more unusual events and almost always required some level of nudity.

She said most involved being a naked server at a private party, but she'd had requests for eating sushi off naked bodies, there were human art exhibits, the film industry often needed naked extras, and she'd had requests for naked humans used as furniture.

She gave Claire a pensive look. "Would you be willing to take your clothes off now? Sometimes our clients are quite specific about what they want, and it's useful to have photos on file. You can cover your face if you like."

It had felt scary and exhilarating to strip right then and there, knowing that Ms. Perston's clients would be looking at photos of her naked body.

"You're very pretty," Ms Perston said, "and it's helpful that you don't have any tattoos or body piercings. Would you be willing to shave your pubic hair?"

Claire blushed intensely and nodded.

"You're going to be very popular," Ms. Perston said. "After a few events, I hope that you consider going without a mask. You have a beautiful face and we'll be able to use you at a whole lot more events if you do."

In the four months since that interview, Ms. Perston had only called her one other time. It was for a part as a masked, naked extra in a TV show episode. In the scene, there were a bunch of men in suits at a private club sitting around, drinking and smoking. There were several other completely naked women with masks on. A few had much more interactive roles, sitting in the laps of the men and grinding, but Claire's job was just to walk into the scene holding a tray, walk toward the camera, then turn to offer a man a drink off the tray. She'd be seen in the background fully nude from both the front and the back. She wished she had one of the more interactive roles, but this was just her first gig.

While on set, Claire was completely naked except for the mask with lots actors and crew constantly moving about. She stayed anonymous, and although she felt perfectly safe and she was never the focus of attention, being naked in such a public setting, and knowing that an unfathomably huge number of people would see her totally naked, she felt like a completely filthy, craven slut. It was PERFECT! She couldn't wait for the show to air.

Ms. Perston had said that there was often a way to collect tips, so she could expect to make good money, but being an extra just paid by the hour, about twice what she'd made for modelling for the art class. Claire had said to Ms. Perston that she was happy to do events that involved more interactive situations and was told that she'd definitely get a call when something came up but, given her desire to be masked, Ms. Perston couldn't say what it would be or when it would happen.

The TV show still hadn't aired when she got the next call. It was for the Veritail event. Before she even started to describe it, Ms. Perston said, "Claire, normally I wouldn't dream of calling a new hire for an event like this. It's a large event and I'd ideally have at least ten staff lined up. Unfortunately, I have other events on the same night, and not many of the others are willing to do this kind of work. I only have six signed up so far. I decided to call you because the client is very flexible about what you choose to wear. You can choose to wear a costume, be topless, or fully nude, and you can wear something that covers your face."

Claire was about to respond, but Ms Perston added, "the base pay is $500 with the possibility of earning even more than that in tips."

Claire listened to Ms. Perston explain the event. The only absolute requirement of her attire, and the only thing that pushed Claire's personal limits well past anything she had expected to experience, was the requirement that she wear a collar around her neck and a tail that would be attached to her via a butt plug. She would have to interact with the attendees while role-playing as a dog, so she would be on all fours the whole time and she wouldn't speak other than barking and growling. She and the other staff who were signed up for the event were each encouraged to create a persona that they imagined would wear the collar and tail to an event, and to inhabit that persona for the evening. The clients wanted a diversity of role-playing interests to show off the versatility of their product.

Claire imagined herself completely naked except for a mask, on all fours, barking, wagging her tail, playing and begging for treats. It sounded like it might just be the anonymous, incredibly slutty exhibitionist experience that she craved. She'd never tried inserting a butt-plug before so she couldn't even imagine what it would be like to wear one in public. There was a sensible part of her yelling in her head, "do NOT say yes to this! This is a VERY bad idea!"

"Yes," Claire said. "Sign me up. I'll do it."

Meanwhile, in the bathtub on the Thursday before the event, Claire had successfully inserted the training butt-plug, taken it out and managed to get the next size up inserted. She'd decided to call Ms. Perston and cancel and then reversed that decision at least a dozen times. She was now standing in front of the mirror having a look. The flared end of the plug was just blue silicon, so it didn't look like much. It wasn't that it was uncomfortable, it just felt kind of wrong. Claire was naked. She imagined herself in a crowd of men in suits. She turned so she could see herself from every angle, she clenched her bum, gave her perky c-cup tits a squeeze, and let out an involuntary whimper.

Not wrong, she thought. It was lewd. Having everyone see her not only completely naked, but with a sex toy obscenely plugged into her anus would make her feel so much dirtier, sluttier and more ashamed than she'd ever felt before in her life.

Oh God! Saturday was going to be both utterly horrifying and fantastic!

When Saturday arrived, Claire was feeling really nervous. She'd watched a bunch of porn videos of "petgirls" and so many of them showed women being cruelly dominated and humiliated. She was disturbed enough by what she saw that she'd asked Ms. Perston about it. Ms. Perston had explained that there was no doubt that people who bought the collars and tails would use them in more extreme scenarios, but the investor appreciation night was to be all about the positive, fun aspects of role-play. They'd even hired some security, so Claire did not have to worry about abusive behaviour.

Ms. Perston apprehensively asked if Claire was having second thoughts. She still only had seven of them where she should have had ten. "I can't afford to lose you."

"No. Not at all," Claire typed back. The vulnerable, terrified and sexy feelings she craved were surging in her so there was no way she'd back down now.

She arrived at the venue at noon. It was a small, fancy hotel. The reception would be outside in the gardens and wouldn't start until 7pm. There was a large fence around the gardens making them private and the company throwing the event had secured all of the hotel rooms that had a view into them. Claire and the rest of Ms. Perston's team only had access to the collars and tails on the day, and they had to spend a bit of time going over how they worked and getting used to them. After the training session, they'd have a few hours to themselves, so they didn't have to have the butt-plug inserted for too long all at once.

The collars and tails were connected wirelessly. The operating system could be set up to work however the owner wanted, but for that evening, they were set up to facilitate Claire and the other staff providing paid services. They'd receive the payment as tips, and the operating system would allow them to negotiate payment without having to break character.

Claire had said she was going to role-play a "cute and playful" puppy. She decided that face-paint would suit her persona better than a mask.

The four women and two men that were Claire's fellow staff for the event, had chosen other personas. Amanda and Serge were going to be decked out in bondage gear. Serge had a full head mask and Amanda would have a bit clamped into her mouth. Like Claire, Liana was opting to be fully naked, but with her short mohawk, extensive tattoos and piercings, she wasn't going to come across as a cute and playful puppy so much as a scrappy mutt.

Isabella would be wearing lingerie, an elaborate canine face mask and 3-inch heels. It seemed an odd choice, given that she was going to be on her hands and knees, but Claire had no experience with sexual role-playing, so she didn't question it. The last two, Colin and Diana, were a couple and they were both going to be role-playing as furries, so they'd be wearing plush full-body animal outfits.

Regardless of their persona, all of them would be wearing the collar and the Veritail butt plug, so any costumes they were wearing had to have an opening to accommodate the tail. Claire and Liana may have been the only two opting to be fully naked, but all of them would be on their hands and knees, they would all be barking and wagging their tails, and everyone attending would know that the Veritail was a butt plug.

None of the costumes were going to preserve anyone's dignity, and they all knew that.

Ms. Perston was there with them, but the training was done by Maggie and Mark who were affiliated with the sex toy company that was hosting the event.

During the introduction, Claire started to feel self-conscious about her choice of persona. The others had all chosen personas with some depth or edge, which fit the client's desire for diversity. Claire had initially felt a bit of pride that she and Liana were embracing the experience more fully than the others by going naked, but that pride gave way to embarrassment that her persona was going to come across as naive.

They each had a private space to put on the collar and insert the plug. The box that was handed to Claire had the name "Bubbles" on it. She found that the collar had a tag with the same name on it. She guessed that this was the name she'd be going by for the night.

It was a particularly warm day in the last week of June so Claire had arrived wearing sandals, leggings and a crop top. She hadn't considered what she might want to wear during the training, so when she re-emerged into the shared space she was wearing absolutely nothing other than the tail and the collar. All of the others had more experience with butt plugs than Claire, so she was the last one to join the group and she saw that everyone else had been smart enough to bring long loose shirts to wear.

"Someone's eager to get this show going!" Liana said.

Serge whistled.

"Someone's going to earn a lot of tips tonight!" Amanda countered.

"If you want to put something on over top for the training, we'll give you a minute," Maggie said.

"Um." Claire was standing to one side of the group. Everyone else was kneeling on a yoga mat facing Mark and Maggie. With everyone staring at her, she started blushing intensely. "I didn't bring anything to put on."

"Well, no matter," Maggie said, looking a bit amused, "we're about to go over the functionality of the Veritail sex toy. It's a butt-plug. Nobody is going to be offended by a bit of nudity."

For the duration of the evening, Claire and the others would be referred to as the Veritail Puppies or V-pups. The role-play wasn't just to show off the Veritail itself, it was also a demonstration of the power and flexibility of the operating system. The V-pups would be circulating among the event attendees, treating them as "clients" who could obtain "services" from them.

Maggie explained how the event attendees could ask for anything they wanted. An example she gave was going for a 2 minute walk. Each of the V-pups had a leash attached to their collar that they would carry in their mouths when moving around the reception. It had a special secondary handle that was designed to stay upright if the leash fell on the ground so they didn't have to worry about inadvertently ingesting stuff that was on the ground, and the attendees hands would only come into contact with the other main handle.

If someone asked to take one of them for a walk, the V-pup could choose not to by giving a short growl. If they agreed, they would give a particular bark. One of the things they had to arrive early for was to train the system to understand when they were growling and what each of their barks meant. Claire used "arf!" as her way of saying "yes".

"Ruf?" was to indicate a question, the example Maggie gave was to remind the attendee to tell the V-Pup the duration of the intended walk. This had to be supplied in the app on the client's phone, but the V-pup had to know in order to negotiate. The person wanting to go for a walk would then ask how much. Claire trained the system to understand that "woof!" was used to count. When counting money, each "woof!" meant ten dollars. She would say, "woof! Woof! Arf!" to indicate twenty dollars.

Feedback from the operating system was sent back to the V-Pups with various pulses of vibration, either in the collar or in the butt-plug.

As they started training, Claire discovered that each "woof! was accompanied by a short burst of vibration in the plug so the system could acknowledge that it had understood. The client would then use the phone app to transfer payment. This was acknowledged to Clair with a longer burst of vibration and she was told that she would then say "arf!" again to begin the walk.

At first, given that they had to decide on duration as well as on price, and that there were different vibrations to acknowledge acceptance by both parties, it seemed really cumbersome. But once they each ran through a couple of scenarios with Maggie and Mark, it quickly made sense. The phone app guided the clients through it, so even though the V-pups had to remember a few key things, it was hard to get off track.

They had the option of wearing skin-tone matching mitts on their hands and pads stuck to their knees so that, depending on their costume, they could comfortably remain on all fours. For Claire, who decided to use both, that meant that she wouldn't be able to use her hands. If any of them needed a drink, they would be drinking out of a bowl on the ground.

That sunk in slowly. In a few hours, Claire would be completely naked on her hands and knees in front of some random guy. He would press a button on his phone, a payment would be sent to her, the butt-plug in her ass would vibrate, she would bark like a dog and wag her tail for him and then he'd take her leash and walk her around the gardens while chatting with his buddies.

Wow, this was fucked up! Why was her heart pounding with excitement!

"I'm going to turn on the wagging feature now," Mark said.

"You'll feel the plug expand a little. The plug does this so that it stays stable, even for enthusiastic wagging. There's no danger, but if it ever feels uncomfortable, get in touch with us right away." Then Maggie grinned at them, "you're going to like this!"

Claire experienced the odd sensation of it expanding it a bit, but Maggie was right, it didn't feel uncomfortable. Every vibration of the plug and now the sensation of expansion made her feel like, in addition to being naked and exposed, she was also engaged in an ongoing deviant and public anal sex act!

On top of all that, she was expecting the tail to start wagging, but nothing happened. She and the other staff looked around.

"The tail is designed to wag WITH you," Maggie said.

Claire moved her bum and she felt the plug shift. "Whoa!" she said, looking back to discover that the tail was now up, shaped like a sabre.

"You'll find that the position of the tail is quite responsive to clenching and adjustments to your pelvic floor," Maggie said. "Try wagging your bum side to side a bit."

Claire tentatively tried a little wag and found that the tail swished back and forth in a very satisfying way.

They each experimented with their tails and within a couple of minutes they were all laughing and wagging them enthusiastically. The engineers had managed to time how the tail responded just right. Claire was astonished by how quickly she got used to it. She wouldn't say that it felt like part of her, it was after all a foreign object lodged in her anus, but it was suddenly obvious why dogs like wagging their tails. Wagging immediately felt like an expression of inner joy.

She could tell that all the other V-pups felt it too. All of them were on all fours, wagging as hard as they could and grinning like idiots.

Claire started barking. "Arf! Arf! Arf!" she said, and got the others all laughing.

She was still barking when the others suddenly stopped wagging and laughing. Claire, who had her back to the door, stopped barking and wagging a few seconds later. She turned her head to see that a stylishly dressed woman and two men in suits had just entered the training room. They were staring at her, smiling.

Once again, Claire felt especially exposed being the only one who was completely naked, and she felt childish and silly for barking and wagging her tail like an idiot.

Ms. Perston introduced them all to Eliza and a couple of the first tier investors who had backed the Veritail. To Claire, Eliza was dressed impeccably to convey confidence and purpose. She had amazing red hair and perfect posture. Claire thought she was one of the most beautiful women she'd ever seen.

Claire never wore anything more stylish than jeans or leggings. Eliza was sexy, but in a way that let you know that she would always be in charge. She was smiling down at Claire with mild amusement in her eyes.

"Who is this delightful creature?" asked one of the investors. Claire thought he looked like he might be 50.

Claire blushed intensely as Ms. Perston introduced her. "This is Bubbles." She then turned to Claire and said, "why don't you say hello and give these two gentlemen a nice wag. In character, of course."

Claire realized that she meant that she should greet them as Bubbles, so she said, "arf!" and wagged her tail. She felt a little betrayed that she was meeting these men and she didn't have her face-paint on yet. Barking and wagging on command while on her hands and knees and stark naked, having been referred to as Bubbles and "this delightful creature" was absolutely surreal. Claire felt demeaned and slutty. The incongruous experience of infectious joy and playfulness that bubbled up inside her whenever she wagged the tail made it even more surreal. It was a crazy cocktail of intense elation, sex and shame, and the event hadn't even started yet.

"Thank you Bubbles," Ms. Perston said, and then turned to Eliza, "I didn't think you would be bringing anyone back here."

"They're on our board, Lenora," Eliza said, "they've signed all the appropriate NDAs, so don't worry. We've got a meeting here this afternoon before the dinner to strategize and we heard all the barking and laughing. We'll let you get back to your preparations."

Claire watched Eliza as she and the two investors left. Her heart was pounding.

"Eliza will be introducing you and doing the announcing at the reception tonight," Ms. Perston said. "She's actually really great. I won't be here because there are a couple of other events going on tonight that I have to oversee, but you can trust Eliza to help with anything you need."

They spent another ten minutes getting used to their collars and tails, but it just wasn't that difficult. They worked great.

They removed them, cleaned them and put them aside until the reception, each of them with their own box.

They had to be back by 6:00 to get ready. Claire left hardly believing that she was going to be paid for this. It was going to be way more sexy and dirty, with way more shameful public exposure than she'd ever imagined! And more terrifying than she'd ever imagined! She reminded herself that she'd be completely anonymous, she was going to make a pile of money, and tomorrow Bubbles would just be a memory.