Part 3.
Tim walked into the place just before 8:00. Julie saw him first, as he hesitated just inside the front door. "He's here!"
Several of the other women turned, and Shawna and Danielle both gave a sigh of relief. "It's about time," Shawna said, and she and Danielle hustled over to him.
"You had us worried," Danielle said, as she entwined one of Tim's arms in hers.
Shawna did the same thing with his other arm, and they walked him toward the table they'd set up.
Tim had only gotten three steps inside the door, and already he was being led around by these two. But before he could say anything, Danielle said, "There's someone I'd like you to meet."
He saw Stephanie approaching, and he couldn't help giving her the once-over: strawberry blonde hair, pretty face, a shirt fitting just snugly enough to suggest a nice figure, faded tight jeans, cowboy boots.
When his scan returned to her face, he saw that she had been looking him up and down, too, and was now grinning at him. "This must be the star of the show," she said, sticking out her hand, which he shook. She said, "I'm Stephanie."
"Steph is an old college friend of mine," Danielle said, "and the owner of this place."
"Tim. Nice to meet you."
"Oh, the pleasure is all mine," Stephanie said with just a hint of flirtation. "The ladies have told me about you, and the ad campaign, and I've got to tell you that I'm impressed. Not many men would have the self-confidence it takes to let their employees have fun at their expense the way you've arranged to do."
Tim looked just a little uncomfortable at that. "Thanks."
"You're a little late," Shawna said, guiding him over to the table, as Danielle and Stephanie huddled for a minute.
Tim sat down behind the table, where his four attractive employees were already seated. "We're glad to see you," Anna said.
Mia said, "Some of us thought you might have gotten cold feet."
Tim shook his head and forced a smile, not wanting to admit that he'd circled the block twice before he'd finally decided to come in.
Stephanie stepped out in front of the bar and clapped her hands twice to get everyone's attention. "Hello everybody. We're doing something a little unusual tonight, so please give me a minute to explain."
When the women in the place had quieted down, she continued. "My good friend Danielle here," she pointed, and Danielle smiled and nodded to everyone, "has a business, and she's come up with a new tv ad for a product. Normally I wouldn't care about that, but that ad campaign was made by a local company, and I always like to support local businesses."
Many of the women in the crowd made approving noises, and a few raised their glasses. "So when Danielle asked me if she could have a showing of the ad in my place tonight, I said yes, as long as there was something in it for you and me."
Danielle smiled, and stepped over beside Stephanie. "I asked her if it would be all right if my company bought a round of drinks for you all, in exchange for you giving us just a minute to respond to our ad."
At the mention of "free drinks," a healthy cheer came from around the room. Stephanie laughed and waved her arm toward the crowd, "I know my clientele!" Laughter and applause rang out.
Joy, Sandy, Becky and Pam fanned out into the crowd, distributing the response cards to each table, while Danielle explained that each person was to fill them out after watching the ad. "All you have to do is circle a number between 1 and 10, with 10 being the best, and then write a short comment, just a sentence on what you liked or didn't like in the ad."
Stephanie said, "We'll take your drink orders after the ad, while you're filling out your responses."
Shawna looked at her watch, and got Danielle's attention. "Okay," Danielle said, watching as the last few tables received their response cards and pens, "the ad will air in 4 minutes, at 10 after. But before it does, I want to introduce the actors in our ad, who are here with us here tonight."
There was a bit of polite applause as the crowd looked a little more closely at the five people sitting behind the table.
Danielle stepped to one side and gestured toward the five with her arm. "These are not actors, at least not before tonight. They actually work in a local ad agency. The employees are Julie, Mia, Anna and Kaitlyn" -- each of the young women smiled and raised a hand when their names were called -- "and their boss here is Tim." Tim was already blushing slightly, but he gave a small, shy wave when Danielle mentioned his name.
"Our product is a body spray for men, so we decided to make our good-looking young boss Tim the center of attention." Tim's smile looked a little forced. Danielle wagged a finger toward him, and said in a sing-song voice, "But not in the way you might be used to."
A small buzz started in the audience, with women looking at Tim, and each other. Many of them were a little confused, but most of them liked the sound of that.
Danielle said, "Stephanie, can you do the honors?"
Stephanie picked up the remote from the bar and synched all televisions to the right channel, and then turned the sound up. It was 8:08, and an ad for an insurance company was on. Stephanie said, "If you'll focus your attention please, our ad is up next."
Tim and the girls at the table were facing the crowd. They could see the other 4 screens on the other walls, but the biggest and closest screen was right behind them, and that's the one most of the nearby audience looked at. Tim and his employees all turned in their seats to see that screen.
The ad started, and Tim and his employees watched the first short bit of it. When the onscreen Mia asked Tim if he could change the lightbulb, and positioned herself in front of him on the ladder, preparing to de-pants him, he instinctively looked away from the tv, knowing what was coming.
That left him looking at the women in the room, and there was no doubting when the moment arrived when sneaky Mia yanked his pants down. All of the women in the room got wide eyes and burst out laughing. "Woo hoo!" one pretty brunette at a nearby table cheered, and Tim quickly looked away from her.
But wherever he looked, he saw smiling and laughing women. A few of them made eye contact with him. He could feel himself blushing, so he quickly stole a glance back up at the tv, just in time to see clever Anna intentionally close the office door on the seat of his pants.
He didn't want to look back at the crowd of women in the room, so he forced himself to watch as he stumbled forward onscreen, tearing away the back of his pants. Just as Joy had asked for during shooting, he hopped forward as if to get his balance, and he saw the way his butt jiggled under his snug boxers.
Another cheer from the crowd burned in his ears. He caught a couple of smiling, sideways glances from Mia and Anna, who were half-turned in their seats as he was.
Grinning blonde Julie leaned over to him and said, "I think they like it so far!"
Tim forced himself to watch as Kaitlyn spilled the coffee all over his shirt, and he heard a new wave of laughter from behind him. A loud female voice from off near the end of the bar said, "You'd better get that shirt off him, or you'll never get the stain out."
"His pants too, just to be safe," called out another woman from the far side of the room.
Laughter was coming from all directions. On screen, Tim was deprived of his shirt, and then Julie maneuvered him into crawling under the glass-top table. Shirtless and with the back gone from his pants, his prominent rump wiggled from side to side, encased in his form-fitting boxers.
Tim felt paralyzed in his chair, not wanting to watch Julie kneeling near his ankles and de-pantsing him completely. But the noise from the crowd now was an undifferentiated wall of excited laughter and cat calling, and he did not want to lock eyes with any of those raucous women.