A Living Doll

 

"Ouch! Hey...w... What was that?"

A sharp stinging sensation on his left bicep brought him from sleep to a state of confused wakefulness. And then... Was that the bedroom door softly closing ? He sat up, rubbing his eyes blearily, turning in the bed to where he expected to see Lori, his Lori, asleep beside him. The covers on her side were thrown back. The red numerals of the bedside clock glowed. 3 am. His mouth felt dry. Damn, he wished he'd had some water before coming to bed. Another night at the Husymans Club had left him exhausted, and more than a little drunk. Dehydrating by the time he'd got back to the small apartment no more than...What was it...? Just over an hour ago? But surely Lori, trusting little Lori had already been in bed, asleep, when he'd crept with exaggerated alcoholic care between the sheets beside her. So where the hell was she now ? And what, the thought intruded into his still fuddled brain, had happened to his arm ? He rubbed it with his right hand, feeling...Absolutely nothing, he realised, with just a twinge of alarm. Nothing save for a cool, distant tingling.

He flexed his upper arm, rotated his shoulder. (Must have gone to sleep lying on it.) This numbness was just loss of circulation to the muscles. What as a child he had called, remembering the tingling rush of returning blood, 'pins and needles'. (It'll be fine in a minute or two.) He rotated his shoulder again, moving slowly round the bed to Lori's side The bedroom door was a couple of feet away. He stopped. The numbness hadn't gone. If anything, it was spreading. There was no pain, but as he flexed and stretched his arm it felt... tight. The muscles and flesh constricted, a little like when he was pumped from a session in the gym.

"Pins and needles."

He realised as the words formed that he had spoken out loud, and the loudness of it in the quiet, darkened bedroom shocked him. The loudness...and may be just a hint of fear. Didn't heart attacks start this way, tingling in arms and ...chest. Yes, now the numbness seemed to be spreading faster, moving in from his arm, reaching cool, tingling fingers across his ribs, across his heart. He swayed, unsteady, though whether from booze or something else he could not tell, breathing deeply, fighting for composure. Slowly , he felt himself becoming calmer. Which was odd, because surely the feeling of creeping numbness was still spreading, deepening, and surely he should be reaching for the bedside phone, dialling 911: "Emergency, I think I'm having a heart attack..." But the jumbled stream of consciousness passing through his mind was oddly affectless, distanced. No. It couldn 't be a heart attack. He was young, just twenty six, fit... and attractive. A hit with the ladies. Even now, that he was married. Especially now. This past month.

A fragment of his evening at the Husymans Club surfaced, and despite the still spreading numbness he found himself grinning, his confidence returning as he remembered the girl; 5'4", a petite blond with short bobbed hair, cool blue eyes, a slim, well proportioned body... He had chosen what he thought of as the 'Coppelia Scene' for her to play, thrilled when she had appeared for him in the costume - the white satin ballet slippers, the fine denier white tights, that gave her legs a sculpted, shiny perfection, the white net ballerina's tutu flaring out from the glossy white high-necked lycra body suit which covered her from just beneath the chin to her small , satin-glove encased hands, and her face... Oh her face!

Even now his cock stirred at the memory. While he had waited impatiently in the room next door for her to change, the girl had done an expert job, matting her face down with clown-white foundation, making it into the blank perfect mask of an automaton, shaping her lips into a hard-edged gloss-red cupids bow, outlining her long-lashed eyes in exaggerated black eyeliner, painting her eyelids a shocking bright blue. And on each flawless cheek, she had painted a big, glossy red circle. When at last she had entered his room, moving stiffly, limbs locked at knee and elbow, she had the face of a doll, a little china doll. He didn't know how she had done it, but she must have put something else - lacquer? gel ? - over the whole of her face because it had an immobile, slick plastic sheen, reinforcing the impression that this young attractive woman had somehow been magically transformed into a picture-perfect wind up ballerina toy. The finishing touch was the delicate, filigreed key apparently protruding from her back.

Oh, how he had enjoyed the next two hours, commanding his little ballerina doll to service him in ever more imaginative rigid postures... and then the bell had rung, and it had been his turn to change, and service her fantasy...

..Because that was the way the club worked. A members co-operative, collectively financed. Extremely private. Extremely expensive. Everyone a volunteer , taking turns to serve and being served, according to whatever fantasy each club member desired. Branches - discrete, unknown to the police - in most of the major cities. Some concealed behind bland store fronts, or in apparently abandoned warehouses, in bad parts of town. Others - those run by the club elite, the franchise holders - in member's own well appointed homes. Specially equipped rooms, props, costumes - anything you wanted was yours for the asking, money no object. If you had a fantasy, the Husymans Club could bring it to life for you.

He had been lucky to find it, the clubs existence uncovered after weeks of on-line searching, surfacing first as a web page rumour, then a link, then another, to a newsgroup... and finally, to an encrypted e-mail address, somewhere at the end of a long chain of anonymous remailers... Luckier still to be allowed to join, given that he had to lie about his income to get in, using his hacking skills to fake out the club's rigorous financial and character checks. Oh, sure, he made a comfortable enough living as a freelance software engineer, working from home any hour of the day or night, dealing with clients by phone or e- mail. But his salary didn't come close to affording the fees the Husymans Club demanded. It had been nearly a month now. The check would fall due soon, and that would be that. No way to pay. But it had been worth it for the month he had experienced. And he had been careful too. There was no way the club could trace him back, and even if they could, what could they do - sue ?

He smiled again. Then stumbled. He almost fell against the bed. The urgent need of the moment over-rode the pleasant memory. (Water. I need water.) He left the bedroom and staggered down the hall to the bathroom. It took a long, long time. Like one of those nightmares when everything goes into slo-mo. (But if this is a nightmare, why aren't I frightened?) It took him an age to operate the door knob to the bathroom, then he felt cool tile beneath his feet, and saw his pale white body dimly reflected at every angle in the large mirrors which lined both long walls of the darkened room. It was a big bathroom. Too big, he'd thought, when they signed the lease on the apartment. Now it felt like a football stadium. The stiff numbness across his shoulder and upper arms, reaching now to his elbows, made upward motion impossible. Reaching to turn on the lights was out of the question. Stumbling and clumsy in the dark, he made for the cold porcelain gleam of the washbasin, a continent away on the other side of the room.

Reaching it, he steadied himself, then reached forward to the faucet with his left hand. He had to bend at the waist to manage it. His entire arm from shoulder to fingertip felt numb now. He noticed his fingers were stiff, as if locked in their extended position. He tried flexing them, willing them to curl around the faucet. They remained as rigid as pencils laid side by side, turning his hand into a flat blade of fixed flesh. He tried bending his elbow, and found he couldn't. For a brief moment, fear did return, piercing through the growing odd detachment he felt still settling on his mind, like snow on a windshield. Jerkily, he raised himself from the basin and stood erect, fighting for clarity of thought and ease of motion. Not getting it.

Again, there was no pain, but it felt now like each individual vertebrae was fusing into the next, turning his spine into a solid column of bone. He turned - or rather rocked round unsteadily on the ball of one foot, like a malfunctioning male version of the wind up toy the girl had played for him earlier. He managed to face the door again. He tried to move his extended arm to his side. Couldn't do that either. He took a step; it wasn't easy, as he could no longer feel the tile beneath his feet. One more jerky step. Another. (I...have... to... reach... the... door. Something... is... wrong.) He articulated the words in his mind, but they had no meaning for him. He pictured another step. Just framing the thought was like walking through thick, glutinous mud. He found his body hadn't moved. Suddenly the bathroom door swung inward, and the overhead light blazed on.

"Lori! Thank God!" At least, that was what he had meant to say As if through cotton wool he heard a voice... his voice... slur out her name, imploringly. That was all. The rest was lost.

"Living doll, huh?" There was bright colour in her cheeks, but there was nothing doll like about Lori. Particularly now. She was beyond anger. Incandescent - magnificent - with rage. She took a deep breath, and her full breasts shifted beneath the short flimsy sheerness of her only clothing, an ivory silk night-dress. Both her nipples were clearly erect, pushing at the soft shine of the fabric. At any other time he would have found the physical arousal her anger had unwittingly granted her irresistibly erotic himself - Lori was at her horniest straight after, and sometimes during one of their many, many fights. But now, his befuddled mind ignored this; ignored even his own strange predicament; and simply fought to make sense of her words. She pushed her long, straight black hair from her face and held up a sheaf of papers.

"I'll give you a 'living doll'!"

He felt confusion again. This was all too weird.

"You thought you were being so clever, didn't you ? Sneaking off night after night, working on that 'special project' of yours. Well, think again. Three days ago you left yourself logged on. Bad move, Buster."

She stepped forward and stood in front of him. His arm, stiffly extended , was still reaching forward, locked in the frozen pose it had assumed minutes... hours? ago. His perception of time was slipping away. It was like the acid he had dropped in high school; he found himself fascinated by the universe of meaning created by the juxtaposition of his rigid fingers, and her gently heaving right breast, just scant inches away. Almost close enough to brush the slick fabric of her gown, and feel the hard nub of that erect nipple beneath... Except Lori might as well have been in Alaska, for all the chance he had of making contact.

He struggled to force his fingers... then his arm... his head... legs... anything to move. He realised with a slow dawning shock that the encroaching paralysis was now total, his entire body was now immobilised, coolly tingling, and rigid. Even his breathing and pulse seemed to have slowed to almost imperceptible levels. Only his eyes moved in the static planes of his face, and they too seemed to be slowing up, gelling, fixing on... Lori. If only he could explain to her what was happening to him. But it didn't sound like she was in the mood for explanations, about anything.

"I read your e-mail Hon," Lori snarled. "Let's see..." she selected a sheet of paper from the bundle in her hand, and began to read, in a waspish, sarcastic tone of voice...

"Larry. Went to Husyman's again last night. You should try the latest 'living doll'. The best so far, I think. She's a great little screw-toy , and with the make-up and movement, totally convincing. It's hard to believe there's flesh and blood in there: just a lot of totally obedient cogs and gears that need a lot of winding up to keep in action, if you know what I mean. And when she freezes up when she's going down on you... Pah!" ;

Lori broke off abruptly and tossed the sheet of paper away. "I read all of them... That's right." She nodded slowly, fixing his eyes with her own.  "All of them."

She stepped back, and looked appraisingly at him, halted as he was in mid step, naked, arm extended, semi-erect cock at half mast. It was an embarrassing, awkward posture. She put her head to one side, then the other, letting him know she was watching, and enjoying his discomfort. She held her gaze on him a long cruel moment. Now it was his turn to flush, as the colour of embarrassment and shame flamed in his frozen cheeks. It was the only reaction he was now capable of making.

"So you and your friend Larry'd rather screw a dolly than a real woman, is that right, big boy ? No, don't bother to argue."

She walked slowly round him, reaching to brush a loose hair from his ivory-white shoulder. There was something proprietorial in the gesture, and something dismissive, too. It was how one might appraise a piece of neglected furniture, in need of a polish. Lori was having a hard time concealing her own excitement. (Everything they told me was true!) She noted that, save for the flush in his face, his skin was everywhere already cool to the touch, and taut with an elastic tension. She ran her fingers lightly down his spine , tracing the curve of a buttock, then slapped him, hard, across the right ass cheek. Angry red weals started up immediately but he did not - could not - register the pain he felt at all. (Well, what do you know- the stuff really works!) She spoke again, her voice thick with anger... or something more complex...

"In fact, I imagine round about now you'll find you can't argue, or do much of anything else, can you ? That's the injection I gave you. It 's nothing special. No magic potion. Apparently, it was developed as a paralysing agent for vets, working with horses. It just kind of locks, the, ah, patient, in place, and settles them down some, while the vet does whatever needs doing. Whatever... Needs... Doing." She poked him to emphasise each of these last three words. He merely rocked slightly under her touch.

She patted him once more, again as one might a favourite ornament, then stood before him. She shaped a small, bitter smile.

"Effective, though, isn't it? Want to know where I got it from ? I'll tell you soon. I'll tell you this right now. The effects of the drug aren't permanent. But then again -- they don't have to be."

Helpless before her, silenced and still, one thought flashed through his dulling mind. (Don't have to be? What does she mean by that?) Lori began pacing in front of him. He was acutely conscious of her probing gaze, raking up and down the length of his body, reflected as it was on all sides by the large mirrors on the bathroom walls. (This isn't how it's supposed to be. It's Lori that puts on the floor show, and me that does the looking!) Naked, exposed, and helpless, robbed of motion and speech, he felt his face flush with embarrassment again. Lori was speaking, with tight, clipped anger.

"Oh, I was angry when I found the e-mail, sure. But hey, that was just when I thought it was you turning out to be a pervert, being unfaithful to your wife with a cheap whore dressed up as a sex toy. I was a whole heck of a lot angrier when I found this one."

She held a second sheet of paper before his eyes accusingly. Had he been capable of doing so, he would have winced. It was a fax. Forwarded through half a dozen cut outs to the fake identity he had so painstakingly established. The original, of course, was shredded. Yet, against his expectation, Lori, the girl who hated everything to do with computers, had worked out how to do it, and resurrected the deleted document from his hard drive. He almost felt pride.

It was of course the bill from Husymans. Not the discrete invoice, blandly made out, at his request, for 'entertaining' that he'd first received. No. This was the detailed, itemised, overdue bill, in all its guilty revealing pay-up-or-else explicitness. And at the bottom, in big red ink-jet letters, the total.

"$40,000 dollars ? For one month ? Were you crazy ? If you cleared out the joint account right now you'd have just over half that, and still have our regular loans to pay." Lori was stoking up her outrage again. "Our loans, Mister. My name's on the contracts too."

He wanted to tell her it was okay, the club had no way of knowing who he really was, they couldn't possibly trace him... Then her next words sent a thrill of fear down his locked spine.

"So I got right on to them, to see if we could cut some kind of deal "

Again the small, bitter smile. Her outrage vanishing into it. Somehow, this display of control was the most frightening part, but he didn't understand why, yet. Instead he found himself wishing for the softening blanket of the drug induced calm to cover him up entirely, to let him escape this bizarre rigidity, and Lori's wrath, in unconsciousness; free in his mind to run and hide and sleep... But some small reptilian part of his brain resisted , sensing survival was at stake, pushing at his leaden thoughts with increasing desperation, as he stood, and watched, and listened; impotently.

How could Lori have been so reckless? He didn't know what kind of action the club might take once it found out how he had defrauded it, but he better be damn sure, his reptile-mind insisted, that he wasn't around when it did. Judging from the directions the financial queries aimed at his fake ID had come from, some people in the club were well connected. Like, government and police connected... THIS IS IMPORTANT! WAKE UP!... For a moment, the smothered panic almost broke through. He struggled mightily against the imprisoning motionless of the drug with all his locked-in strength. If only he could break free. To move. To speak. To... To... think! It wasn't too late. He could set things right with Lori. If only... If only...

It was no good. He felt his capacity for independent thought seeping from him. He poured all his willpower into his outstretched hand, pushing, hard... One last, despairing chance... Something in his mind resisted, stretched taut and thin - and gave way.

Lori noticed a tremble in his left eyelid. That was all. His eyes stared vacantly ahead. Outwardly, he was calm. At peace. As motionless as some thing carved. He still heard her words, understood them, but they were far away from him, and could not touch him anymore. He simply listened, to her voice.

"Didn't want to hear that, did you, my man ? Didn't want dumb little Lori running off her mouth to the club, did you ? Well, of course, I had to find it first. Oh, it wasn't easy. But I had your fake identity on the bill to go by. And you know," she cocked a well rounded hip, hand placed casually on it, and raised the index finger of her other hand coquettishly to her chin, adopting a tone of dumb blonde cuteness "Lori-wori just got the... strangest... little feeling that the club were already looking for my big strong man here." She reached down and tugged him by the cock. His whole body rocked, stiff as a cigar store Indian, then teetered to a standstill. She grinned maliciously. "I always did like the strong, silent type."

She stepped outside the bedroom into the hall then, and reappeared carrying a bulky aluminium case, of the sort used to hold photographic equipment. And indeed the first object she produced from it was a small automatic 35 mil Nikon. She dangled the camera by its strap. The aluminium case lay on the floor with the lid raised, contents hidden from view.

"The club gave me the stuff in the case." she said. "To help with my part of the deal." She raised the camera viewfinder to her eye. "Now - whatever you do... don't move!" She laughed. The motor drive of the little camera clicked and whirred. She took shot after shot of him, from every angle. She shot the whole roll, then stood before him, breathing rapidly.

Some small faraway part of his mind noticed the hunger in her eyes, noted the way she ran her tongue unconsciously round her lips. Lori was still aroused, and not just by anger.

"In case you were wondering, lover, those were the before shots. Now, let's really get down to some work." She bent again to the aluminium case...

* * *

Lori spotted a tiny tremor, a flinch, in his outstretched hand, and glanced at her watch. They had told her the drug would wear off quickly after the deepest phase of the paralysis was reached. It was time to put the next stage of the plan into effect. She put the camera down and reached into the aluminium case again.

First she used the electric clippers to shave off every visible hair on his body, denuding his head, his armpits, his eyebrows, his chest, and his legs. She debated trying to move him, rigid as he was, into the shower stall, and settled instead for using the shower head attachment on the bath faucet to rinse him off between each step. It made a mess on the floor, but what the hell, she was enjoying herself. She reloaded the camera, and took more pictures as she worked. Lori wanted a very complete record of her revenge ..

She lingered lovingly over his cock and balls, using a small pair of nail scissors first, then following up with a wet razor. She used the same razor to go over every inch of his body a second time, pausing once in a while to pull on his outstretched hand, testing it. She felt rigidity still, but minute by minute, it was ebbing...That was good. She needed a certain amount of flexibility for the next stage.

Now, she covered him head to foot in depilatory cream, waited impatiently the prescribed time, then hosed him down, watching the last of his manly hair swirl away into a puddle on the floor. Lori checked her watch. Almost time. She threw some towels down, and mopped the floor before returning her attention to the motionless human form before her. It was a good job he was short, and had such a slim build. Athletic, yes, but not muscled. There would be nothing in his size to spoil the final effect. Lori stepped back, pleased with her work so far.

Her frozen, frantic and treacherous lover stood before her, locked into his awkward tailors dummy posture, hand extended, almost overbalanced, rigid as a fence post. And now, from top to toes, as naked and hairless as the day he was born.

She felt the flesh of his bicep, knowing he could feel her do it, and was helpless, unable to react in any way to her teasing touch. It was an arousing thought, and she felt herself, against her own will, getting damp with - expectation ?... Oh yes, this revenge was going to be sweet..

She found her fingers exploring him, marvelling at the changes she had begun to work on him. Everywhere, his skin was taut, the muscles below locked in spasm by the powerful drug coursing through his veins. His arms, his legs, chest, head... his whole body now was as still, and as smooth and as hairless as... She smiled at the thought... a plastic doll. Well - wasn't that what he liked so very, very much ? A little dolly, to play with? Perhaps she could see his point, after all... And there was still some time left , if she was careful. Well, why not ?

She towelled his body dry, and as a finishing touch, took a fist-sized powder puff and buffed his ivory- white skin top to toes in a fine cloud of scented talcum powder. ("It will help you with the final stage", she had been told.) He smelt - feminine now. She liked that. She also liked it when she found, albeit with some difficulty, that she was now able to force his extended left arm down. It remained fixed in the arc of travel at whatever point she released it at. Like - pipe cleaners ? It was an absurd comparison.

Lori laughed again, and entertained herself for the next few precious minutes posing and reposing his awkwardly yielding upper limbs and the cast of his head, pausing only to take picture after picture of him in each contrived new posture, relishing his inability to stop her, to shift or to react, though she knew he was fully aware of everything she did. She felt the dampness between her thighs turn to wetness. She felt the beginning of the familiar sweet pain.

"I was going to say I hope you don't mind me playing with you like this. But then I thought - why bother? There's nothing you can do to stop me, is there? You don't ask the furniture if you can sit on it, do you ? Besides," she said out loud. "You better get used to it."

("Better get used to it ?") He felt as if he were awakening the second time in this long night. ("Used to what?" ) Slowly his consciousness, which had been turned in on itself, lost in a kind of waking dream, or nightmare, of immobility and embarrassment, turned outwards. He realised he was in the bathroom. Then it came back to him. ("How did I get here? Lori. Lori is here. Something about the club. The bill. Oh God - Lori knows about the club!")

While these thoughts ran through his mind, another had occurred Lori. She looked down at his semi erect cock, extended to its full length, but hanging at half mast. "I wonder..." she said. This time she could not resist. "I mean, it'd be for old times sake..."

She reached down between her legs. As her fingers slipped into herself she felt a shudder of pre-orgasmic delight. God she was hot. Just the thought of him fixed in front of her like that, a living statue unable to stop her doing anything to him... A living statue with a cock... She supposed she should be shocked at herself for giving in to the strangeness of it all, for wanting to do with him what she had called kinky before. But what the hell. He was here, and yep, the pipe cleaner trick worked on every part of him...

She used her anticipatory wetness as lubricant, slicking it over his manhood. Then she pulled and moulded his pliable cock until she had it at just the right angle, hitched up her night dress, and eased herself forward onto him, impaling herself, easing him back at the wall so he lay against it like a toppled toy soldier beneath her, as she began rocking forward and back, forward and back, using him as nothing more or less than a dildo. She stared intently into his face, seeking some sign of the mounting tension he must be feeling, finding instead the unchanging blank impassivity of his expression an even bigger turn on somehow. "How's that, Baby " She panted. "Is that good for you. Huh? Huh?" She reached out and seized his hips, pulling him into her, riding him, deeper, deeper, staring into his blank face.

After some minutes of delicious contractions she felt the tension begin to build... and build... rising through her, wave after wave, moving beyond her conscious control, the muscles of her vaginal walls spasming, her throbbing clitoris swelling and swelling... Her eyes lost focus, and her mind floated free for an indefinable time... When she finally eased off him, she saw the wetness on the end of his cock, his own silvered cum. "So you did feel that, Baby. Huh ?" She looked at him intently. Throughout the whole experience he had remained fixed and rigid. Only... on the smooth flesh of his top lip she saw a tell tale sheen of sweat. She reached down. Fortified by the drug, his cock was as rigid as before. Ready to service her again. "Whether you like it or not." she panted, and, licking the salt-sweet sweat from his lip, began again.

* * *

He realised that Lori was walking towards him, and would have groaned had he been capable of speech. (Not again. Please not again.) He had lost count of the times she had pleasured herself with him now, using his every ready cock and stiffened fingers in ever more imaginative ways, posing him this way and that, arranging and rearranging his helpless body, inciting in him, in his blanketing helpless immobility, a sexual tension which he thought might drive him mad. She had reduced him to an object, a sex toy for her pleasure. He felt... used.

At last she pulled him from his awkward semi recline against the wall into a standing posture. He felt dazed, almost faint as the blood rushed from his head, and might have fallen but for the rigidity her drug had brought to his frozen limbs. He saw that she holding a long, elasticated thing in her hand. He wanted to speak and found that his mouth would not obey him. He felt light headed. He willed himself to reach out for her, and saw his finger move... an inch. Lori looked coolly at the errant finger, then his face. She checked her watch.

"Time to cut to the chase, I think." she said.

She reached forward and slid the elasticated thing, sheath like, over his cock and balls. He felt an oiled silk-like clasp of it around himself. It was erotic, and strange. With agonising slowness he looked down as Lori bent before his groin. He felt a sudden sharp tug, and instinctively reached to push her away. His hand moved another inch, ineffectually.

With a sigh of irritation, Lori took his hand and pushed it with apparent ease away from his side, out of the way of whatever intricate task she was engaged in. Even now, when perhaps the novelty of the sensation should have ebbed, he was astonished to feel that his hand and arm remained where she had left them, extended stiffly out from his side at an angle of about forty-five degrees in an unnatural, locked posture. He tried moving it back. Another inch. At this rate it would take him hours to get his hand back to where it had started from, let alone stop her doing whatever it was she was doing to him. Another tug at his groin.

Lori stepped back, moving away from the mirror behind her so that he could not help but see, for the first time in this endless night, the full length image of what appeared to be a nude tailors display dummy, posed surreally in a perfectly normal bathroom. Pale, uniform white, bald headed, lacking obvious female breasts and, with just a smooth white flatness at the groin, effectively sexless, the thing stood at an awkward angle, it's arm extended forty five degrees...Then the realisation dawned. The unfamiliar object in the mirror. This stiff, artificial object is...(Me!!)

The camera clicked and whirred. Something of his panic must have shown on his thawing face, because as Lori lowered the camera, she said: "I'll have to call that one 'the moment of truth.'" She smiled brightly at him and clasped his covered groin. "Oh, don't worry. Your equipment is still there. Just tucked up out of sight in the cache-sexe. After all, we want you - anatomically correct - don't we? The franchise holders were most insistent about that." Lori bent and began to pull something long and white from the aluminium case, shaking it out like a crumpled bed sheet.

(The franchise holders? What does Lori know about them ?) Before he had a chance to ponder this latest revelation, he realised that she was advancing on him again, carrying some kind of...What was it ? A cat suit ? A Halloween costume ? No - it reminded him of something else. If only he could place it... The thing she was carrying, limbs trailing behind her, gaped at it's back from hairless padded butt to the nape of it's neck, a long spinal slit stopping at mid shoulder, making a hood of the head... The hood - the head? - lolled listlessly. The whole thing was made of some kind of slick white vinyl, and now he knew what it looked like. It looked like... like... a deflated blow-up doll!

(Hey! What is this? What the hell is going on ?)

If he could have fought, he would have, then. But Lori just smiled, and slowly and carefully, as if handling an infant, knelt before him, raised his left leg, bending it at the knee, and left his limb hanging there, ankle down, toes five inches from the floor. He would have toppled had she not reclined him carefully back, so now he rested the back of on his head against the rear wall, his ramrod spine making a stiff angle between wall and floor.

Lori held open the slit in the back of the strange garment, and guided his foot into it, easing the gathered folds up and around his calf. Distantly, through the fading tingling in his legs, he had the sensation of being gripped around the calf elastically. In other circumstances, it would not have been unpleasant...

She tipped him forward, and pulled his foot down until it supported his weight again on the floor. The garment bagged on the tile around his leg , like some discarded human chrysalis. Lori next repeated the procedure with his right leg, so now that he stood, each foot stockinged to above the ankle in the smooth white vinyl-like plastic. He saw in the full length mirror before him that the elastic smoothness of the feet were undifferentiated by toes, just one continuous sweep of smooth plastic from one side of the foot to the other. The rest of the garment made a slick white pool around him. Lori stepped behind him.

Looking down was easier this time, though still painfully slow. The drug 's effects were obviously fading. In a few minutes he'd put a stop to this outrage, and teach Lori a thing or two about trying to screw with him like this. But now... Now, he saw that the inside of the garment seemed composed of a fine continuous mesh of silver strands, over which the thick glossy white plastic appeared to have been moulded. In what had to be the inside of the buttock area of the cat suit protruded a short, thick, flanged plastic pipe, butted to a narrow, thinner one, the two forming a kind of funnel with the short flanged end pointing upwards, 'into' the suit. The area around the two odd shaped pipes was built up with what appeared to be padding. The tubes themselves glistened wetly. It suddenly seemed very important to understand their function.

Life was returning to his limbs with increasing rapidity now, and his mind was distracted by the sudden urge to escape. His legs quivered in anticipation, reluctant still but gaining greater independence from the drug with every passing second. He permitted himself a small sliver of hope. Lori was going to be very, very sorry about this. Oh yes. The rush of returning sensation tingled in his legs.

So it was that he felt Lori's hands smooth the garment up each of his legs, like rolling on a pair of tights. Her head appeared reflected in the mirror at his mid thigh as she worked the garment up to his waist. He felt the all encompassing tightness of the garment corseting his flesh. "Like it, hon?" She said. "I do. But see what you think of this..."

Suddenly, she pivoted him at the waist, forcing him forwards, his buttocks raised in the air. Locked into the new awkward posture, buttock cheeks splayed and vulnerable, he saw her reach for the tubes, which now hung suspended in the crotch of the garment, just inches below his own smoothed and apparently sexless groin. In that moment, he realised what she was about to do. Fighting with every ounce of his gathering mobility, he attempted to stand erect, and had made a good three inches of halting upward movement when...

He wasn't quick enough, as Lori pushed the suit's well lubricated, hollow butt plug between his talcum- smooth buttocks and against his sphincter. A moment of discomfort and resistance, and then with an audible sucking 'pop' the flanged head of the plug sank home within him. His flesh immediately settled around it, involuntarily drawing the thing deep into him and holding it firm. He was shocked and disturbed as a thrill of pure sexual pleasure mingled with pain ran through him.

In a flash, Lori halted his upward motion with a gentle but firm pressure between his shoulder blades that he was still too stiff to resist. Before he had recovered from the shock of his forcible penetration, she was already smoothing the taut white plastic of the garment around each buttock and deep into his now permanently opened and available cleft.

Working quickly, she next gathered the front of the garment, and guided his feebly resisting left arm into its 'sleeve', and into the 'glove' end of it, where, in contrast to the feet, each slender finger was separately defined, even down to the long elegantly shaped ceramic fingernails, painted gloss red. Bent double like a discarded rag doll, he tried to resist a second time, and failed a second time, as Lori easily held his right arm locked and still as she smoothed the taut clinging plastic along its length to the shoulder, where it gripped him in slick intimacy.

Suddenly, pivoting him at the pelvis again, she stood and jerked him upright, moving behind him to pull the sides of the slit at the back of the garment together. He felt her run her fingers along his spine - or rather along the slippery plastic now encasing his spine. Her fingers made a faint squeaking sound, like someone rubbing the surface of a balloon, accompanied by a soft 'rip' as she Velcro-sealed the seam together. Lori couldn't help but admire the craft which had gone into the construction of the suit. So perfectly was it formed that the seam all but disappeared under her touch as it sealed, leaving nothing a slick white sweep of sculpted, apparently flawless plastic behind.

He felt tautness across his chest, and weight. Something seemed to suck at each of his pectorals, clinging. Tautness everywhere. His whole body was being gripped, tightly. Then she was pulling fabric - or what it rubber ? - up over his neck, tugging it down across his face. A hood ? A mask ? He felt pressure up to his neck, forming itself along his jaw, over his chin, reaching almost to his lips, encasing head and neck in one stiff undifferentiated whole. She fiddled with his ears, hurting him, and then they slid and popped into the simplified ear-shaped moulded spaces designed for them either side of the hood. It now passed up either side of his face, and crossed in a taut band across his forehead. He felt the sucking slickness of it in intimate contact with almost every square inch of his body, from his shaven head to his melded toes. He wasn't wearing the suit. He was encased in it.

Lori spent a moment pressing here, smoothing there, and stepped away, dusting talc from her hands, smiling at her handiwork. She bent and took a small black pendant on a silver chain from the aluminium case, hung it around her neck, then waited, glancing occasionally at her watch. Looking at him.

As she stepped back, his first thought had been of escape, to rip the damned costume, whatever it was, off his back, and run. In spite of himself he found himself looking at the apparition in the mirror, ambushed by the vision she had made of him.

He started at the moulded feet, then found his gaze rising up, taking in glossy plastic arching legs, shaped and defined by the vice-like grip of the garment, long, feminine legs which arched up towards the groin - and met there in the glossy uninterrupted sexless smoothness of a Barbie doll Or at least almost uninterrupted. Because in the centre of the lower stomach of the doll-like form before him there was - a slit! A smooth soft-vinyl sex-toy version of a vagina! His eyes widened in horror. How could this be? Lori's amused eyes met his in the mirror. When she spoke her voice was muffled a little, and made distant by the membrane now covering his ears, but he found he could still hear clearly.

"Let me guess. You're wondering about your cute little plastic pussy. It's really quite simple. With the cache-sexe in place and a little bit of hard forming in the crotch of the suit, you've got room for a tasty little dolly's box right there, quite capable of taking even a big boy. As I'm sure you'll be finding out, very, very soon. And I think you'll find the motion down below will do, ah, interesting things to your prostate. Apparently, some of the dollies have even been known to come. Luckily, being vinyl, they're fully washable of course. Inside and out."

(Some of the dollies? What was going on?)

Stunned, he found his gaze fixed on the rest of the unrecognisable form reflected before him, taking in the gently flared, fully feminine profile of his subtly upholstered plastic-padded hips, the blank, shiny white reflectiveness of his navel-less stomach rising to - a pair of small but perfectly formed female breasts, complete with nipples!

Before he could react to this latest shock, Lori stepped forward and attached a hose to his - no, the suits, dammit! - left nipple. The hose ran back to the case. Immediately, there was soft, whooshing sound. He gasped. If the suit had been tight before, now it felt like it was sprayed on, and shrinking into the bargain. In the mirror he saw the last little wrinkles at elbow and knee flatten out and disappear. The soft vinyl breasts moulded into the front of the suit grew more defined, sitting higher on his chest.  His whole body felt hugged, almost to the point of pain. Again, he was distracted by a wave of pure sensual pleasure, in complete defiance of the extremity of his situation. He fought for composure. If he was going to get out of this weirdness, it would have to be soon.

He saw the muscle definition in his calves standing out stark and sculpted by the pressure of the suit, his waist narrowing, accentuating the already soft curve of his hips, pushing his (no, no - the suits) boobs up, turning his torso into an almost exaggeratedly feminine hourglass shape. Pressure across his forehead jerked his attention to the hood part of the suit, and he watched in the mirror as the hood sank into the flesh between lower lip and chin, around his cheeks and eye sockets, across his forehead until only the centre of his face showed natural flesh, and that so sharply delineated that it looked like someone had stuck an androgynous pale human face onto a shop window mannequin's female form.

Just when he thought he could stand it no longer, Lori shut off the suction device, and disconnected the hose from his 'nipple'. The hose came away with a sharp pneumatic hiss. "Apparently the franchisees call this 'shrink-wrapping the merchandise," she said.

"Damn you, you bitch!" He was surprised. This time the words echoed not in his mind but in the cool tiled ambience of the bathroom. At last ! He could speak - and move - again! Albeit he had to hiss the words through clenched teeth, as the tautness of the plastic around his face held his jaw shut. He took one hesitant step towards Lori, making an almost comic squeaking rubber sound as he did so. The suit was tight - God it was tight! - but it seemed designed to flex a little at the joints. He could move - jerkily, but he could move. Suddenly he was acutely aware of the fat butt plug sealing his ass inside the shiny white plastic skin which encased him. The rolling motion of his step shifted the stiff hardness of the plug within him, disturbing him with its unexpected eroticism. Disgusted with himself for registering anything like pleasure from this forcible penetration of his ass, he wanted to pull the thing out, immediately; but first he had to deal with Lori. Stiffly, awkwardly, but with growing confidence he took another step, stifling a moan as the butt plug rolled within him. Lori watched him inscrutably, one hand idly toying with the black pendant.

"Trying to turn me into some kind of freak ? By God, I'll teach you to play with me like this, you bitch!." He stood before her and with a rubber on rubber 'squeak', raised one stiff plasticised hand, ready to strike. He began to bring it sharply down, aiming for her face.

"I don't think you will." Lori murmured calmly, and fingered a small ruby-red stone set into the black pendant around her neck.

Instantly, it was as if the suit had been cast in bronze. He froze in mid strike, arm upraised, incredulous.

"What...What have you done to me?" he gasped out between clenched teeth, the hood of the suddenly rigid suit like a band of iron bound round his skull. Lori swung the black pendant between her fingers. She smiled innocently. "Just now? I did nothing, but shut the power off." ; She moved towards him, ignoring his gloss-white plasticised arm, frozen in mid strike, and laid a caressing palm across his cheek. He made a low animal sound in his throat.

"Now don't quote me on this," she said. "I'm just telling you what the franchise holders told me. The suit you're wearing... your new skin... is made from an experimental thermoplastic textile. Developed by the Army originally, so I'm told. It reacts to minute frequency variations, at the subatomic level. In normal use all the atoms in the lattice - that 's the silvery looking mesh - are lined up or crystallised or whatever. Apparently that makes it stronger than stainless steel. Turn on a magnet, though, and it turns into a piece of rubbery plastic again. As long as it stays near the magnet you can do what you like with it. Or anyone wearing it."

Lori ran an appreciative hand over the smooth slick feminine curve of her immobilised lover's hip.

"The army were going to use it to make instant tents, or something boring like that, but one of the franchise holders saw it's potential in other areas. You see - I know you see - it's the perfect S&M control device for a slave. Turn the field on, and the person in the suit can move, okay a bit jerkily, not quite freely, but at least relatively easily. Turn it off, and it's presto chango, musical statues, with the wearer of the white suit a winner every time. Best of all, if you try and sneak off, you move out of the magnetic field, and then it's thank you, you also win the prize for standing still the longest, until someone comes to find you If they can be bothered to, that is... I, for instance, might just think it's funnier to leave you wherever it is you get to before the field cuts out..." She waited for the impact of her words to register. " Better still, the franchisee discovered that if you modulate the frequency, the lattice becomes less rigid. Still very strong, only this time flexible. Like this."

Lori held up the pendant before his astonished eyes. He saw an amber gem set below the red, and a green one below that, like a miniature set of traffic signals. Lori's finger hovered over the green button. "Green for go ..No I don't think we want that one. Red for stop...you know about that already. Let's try..." Her finger hovered over the amber button. "...get ready." Her finger stabbed down. Immediately, he began straining to move. Lori laughed.

"No, silly. The way that suit fits, pressing on every muscle there' s no way you can get enough flexion in to move as much as an inch." Tenderly, she ran her hand along the smooth rubberised whiteness of his upheld vinyl clad arm. "I, on the other hand, can do what I like with you."

He almost wept tears of frustration as he felt her rearranging his helpless form. Gently, she pulled the arm he would have hit her with down, kinked it at the elbow, and rested it, palm down and fingers splayed delicately, on the generous curve of his newly feminized left hip. She drew his left knee up and forward slightly, arching the foot down and back at an elegant angle. Then she took his right arm, moving it out from his side, and posed his arm, bent back at the elbow with hand upraised before him, fingers delicately parted. She stood away, eyeing the composition she had made of him critically. It was a mixture of frozen grace and awkwardness, the quintessential shop window mannequins pose.

Lori stepped forward and tipped his chin up and to the left, giving him the pose of one just hailed in the street. She was careful to ensure that he could see himself, rigidly fixed in stereotypical feminine posture, in the large mirror next to him.

"Well? What do you think?" After a further moment's impotent struggling in which he was unable to alter his humiliatingly camp position so much as a millimetre, he simply growled at her again.

"Hey. Perhaps you're right. I like the pose..." She thumbed the red button on the pendant again. He felt an indefinable tautening all over his feminized frame. "...But there is something missing." Lori glanced at her watch again, then turned the aluminium suitcase round so for the first time he could see its other contents. He felt fear deep in side the flawless white walls of his plastic-clad abdomen. He was acutely conscious of the weight of the faux breasts, clinging to him as if they were actual flesh. (When was this perverted game of hers going to end?)

A mobile phone lay on top of the grey foam padding in the case. Lori picked it up, and thumbed a number. "Hi... Yes, it all went well. No problems." She looked at him candidly. "Your... merchandise... will be ready for collection in, oh... give me an hour. Okay. " She thumbed the phone off, and took from the case a small chrome flask topped by a snake-like flexible tube. It looked a little like an enema bag.

* * *

"Now the first lesson a new dolly has to learn, my love, is that you can't go growling at people." She thumbed the amber stone, reached up, and opened his jaw.

"What are you going to do to me? Wha... glub" He got no further, as she pinched his nostrils shut with one hand, and forced the tube past his teeth, into his mouth, with the other. She inverted the flask, and watched as thick white liquid coursed through the transparent tube into the back of his throat. He coughed, and gagged.

"I'd advise you to swallow, my dear, in case you drown." His mouth began to fill. Just as she thought the excess would flood from his mouth, and that he might truly prefer drowning to obeying her by breathing, or swallowing, he gulped. Immediately he felt a Novocain-like coldness seeping through his throat. He opened his mouth to protest, but when he tried to articulate, his tongue lay limp in his mouth. He found he couldn't even hum.  ("What has she done to me?")

She sighed, and withdrew the tube from his mouth, dabbing off the excess from his lips with a tissue. They said it worked in seconds. It seemed they were right. She stood back, as the liquid took hold.

"That's you done with growling, or any other kind of unladylike noises for at least a month, my darling." She returned the flask to the case. "Don't worry. Only the finest organic ingredients. And when it starts to wear off, we'll give you a top-up." She assured him. "Seen and not heard, like the good dolly you are. That's your motto now. The Haitians used to use the stuff on nagging wives. They called it dumb cane. A very specific plant toxin, which paralyses the larynx... And now that you are nice and quiet, my little dolly, we can finish our game."

Next she took a series of masks from the case. Dumb, immobile, and posed , encased in his new feminine and plasticised form, he could only watch helplessly as she laid them out before him. There was one painted in bright acrylics made up to look like a white-faced Japanese geisha girl; one with the hardness and sheen of fine porcelain, crafted to look like a Victorian china doll, complete with gloss black painted-on hair; one, a smooth featureless oval of blank-faced chrome; another, also of chrome, with severe, stylised yet recognisably female robotic features; a wooden puppets face; and finally, one which Lori held up to him.

It was eerie. Formed in the same resilient vinyl which held him fast, it was the perfect blank mask of an automaton, lips a hard-edged gloss-red cupids bow, held open in a perpetual - accommodating - 'O' of surprise; eyelids a shocking bright blue, with absurdly long lashes, outlined in exaggerated black eyeliner, framing beautiful, blank blue glass dolly eyes. And on each flawless cheek, a big, glossy red painted circle. It was face of a doll, a little china doll. In fact it was exactly the face of Coppelia, his living doll, from the club. "Recognise her ?" Lori sneered "Here - let me show you how it works." She thumbed the amber stone on the pendant. He felt again the imperceptible, yet useless softening in his limbs. Lori let the pendant drop on its chain to hang between her breasts, and tipped the mask back. The bright blue eyelids fluttered delicately and clicked shut with an audible, soft plastic 'tick'. She brought the mask vertical again, and the eyes snicked open.

"You should appreciate this. Weighted. Just like the, ah, real thing ? If you know what I mean. Lay Dolly down, and ah, look, she goes to sleep. Pick her up, and she wakes up. Cute, no? Press the hidden stud here... " Lori pressed in the centre of the left painted cheek. Another plastic click. "And the eyes lock, open or closed. You get to see out, from your side - unless someone want to put Dolly to bed that is - but no-one can see in."

She turned the mask round, and he saw the blunt tube extending inwards from the open lips. "I think you can guess how this part works by now. Wouldn't do for Dolly to try and bite anyone who was playing with her, would it ? Besides..." She walked slowly towards him, rotating her hips, dangling the mask teasingly from one hand. "A good Dolly is like a 7-ll. She should never close... At either end." Lori ran a hand teasingly round his soft vinyl buttock, and the butt plug shifted exquisitely inside him, reminding him of his helpless, opened availability.

Again, even in the extremity of this moment, he was humiliated to discover that the enforced passivity was not altogether unpleasurable. Imprisoned as it was, he felt his trapped and camouflaged cock attempt to stir. Lori stood directly in front of his fixed form, a knowing smile playing over her lips, and ran her free hand slowly over a breast, along the gloss white stomach, moving lower. He felt every inch of her caress through the suit , as if the suit actually was his skin. He even, he realised, had felt her caress the soft vinyl breast. How could that be? Lori pressed the heel of her palm firmly over the slit of his new doll sex.

Once more, he was ambushed by sensation. Lori smiled, and ground the heel of her palm into the root of the doll sex again. He felt an intense, erotic pressure. Lori slipped one finger in, then two, exploring the artificial slickness of his new flesh. The sensation was incredible. Against his will, he opened his mouth, and gasped - or would have done if any sound were capable of rising from his dumb-struck, paralysed larynx.

Clearly, this was the moment Lori had been waiting for. In an instant, as his lips and teeth parted, she forced the tube of the Coppelia mask past them, forcing his jaw immediately into an unwilled but helpless relaxed receptivity, the tube simultaneously gagging him and holding his new doll mouth open and ready. Her finger traced the outline of the mask, as it seemed to suck itself onto the last of his exposed human flesh, sealing it invisibly into the boundaries of the white vinyl form: and then it was done.

He now viewed the world through the Doll's blank glass eyes, restricting his vision to a forty-five degree arc directly in front of him. Lori was out of view. He heard her walk away. During the fitting of the mask, she must have turned him, for now he could see nothing but an expanse of bare white, featureless tile. No sooner had he registered the new situation, than she had clicked off the light. He heard her steps receding down the hall, and then he was alone in the dark...

Rage burned within him. She had left him there, just like that, as if he were no more than a chair or a table, an object to be used and left until it was used again. He wasted futile minutes struggling to move... anything. Every part of his body was locked solid, immobile. He exhausted himself , uselessly. Fixed, as rigid as a piece of garden statuary, and rendered into a feminized object indistinguishable from and as unremarkable as any shop window mannequin, his frantic thoughts chased themselves wearily round and round...

Perhaps he slept. Perhaps the cocktail of drugs he had been forced to take had side effects. Perhaps he dreamed. It seemed he recalled a rustling of silk; someone holding him - shaping him, again, against his will. His feet, stiffly plastic, being raised, something being slipped on them. Upper limbs being posed. And one pure vision of Lori, standing before him, holding a plainly artificial wig of black synthetic hair, wound up and styled into a ballerina's tight bun, a toy-like tiara already in place on the top of it. Laughing at him as she reached up towards his plastic face, and kissed his frozen lip. "Pretty Dolly."...

The lights came on. And now, surely, this was the final insult. He was facing the mirror. In the mirror he could see: glossy black patent high-heeled pumps; white satin-finished gartered stockings, sheathing glossy white plastic dolls legs, arched and defined by the high heeled pumps rising to... a child's idea of a ballerina's tutu, all floating stiff and dainty net, standing out so straight from the narrow waist that the straps of the garter belt were plainly visible beneath; a beaded, pretty patterned satin faced and tight laced corset bustiere from which two perfect globe shaped breasts almost spilled; arms elegantly extended, sheathed in silk evening gloves from exquisitely poised elbow to fingertip. The fingers of each posed hand lightly gripped the hem of the tutu; the left foot was drawn up and cocked behind the right, and the top half of the doll in the mirror inclined stiffly from the waist. She was posed in mid curtsey. And she, as he took in again the blood red 'O' of the dolls perpetually surprised mouth, her bright circled cheeks, her tight bun of black doll hair... was him.  Lori had taken him, and made him into his own Coppelia !

"Who's the living doll now my sweet?" It was Lori, materialising beside the rigidly posed mannequin which had once been the husband who had betrayed her. "My, but you're pretty. A pretty little dolly. I can see you being in demand." She met the blank blue glass of the dolls gaze, and held it a long long time. Revenge. Then she turned, and said: "Okay boys and girls. The merchandise is ready for collection. Have you got the paperwork ?" Two tall, heavily built young men walked in to the room, one pushing a chrome two-wheeled hand cart. Both wore black pendants, like Lori's, round their necks.

The doll dressed as Coppelia, remained, of course, absolutely motionless, frozen in mid-curtsey. But behind the close fitting mask, the one who inhabited her now and gave her life felt a descent into a new burning shame. The two young men were familiar. They knew him. Many a night he had stood with them at the bar of Husymans Club, drinking, laughing, talking football and cars, eyeing the women they would select for the games later on. And now they were staring at him, tricked out in a tutu, and turned into a dumb, female sex toy. But... Perhaps... perhaps... They didn't who he was. Or who he had been... In this nightmare without end, it was all he could cling to. Until Lori said: "Well ? What do you think, boys? You think he regrets trying to, ah... stiff... you guys now?"

They all laughed, then, and the bigger man, Brad, gave a low whistle of appreciation.

"Wow. Good job! She's cute. Isn't she ?" Hearing himself spoken of as 'she', in that easy, proprietorial way caused the immobilised victim a new flush of shame. Anxiously, he watched through his blank, wide open doll-cute eyes as Brad circled him slowly, appraisingly. Brad had a very evident, very large bulge tenting the front of his faded jeans. "You 'd never guess, would you ?"

The big man paused at the doll's behind. Jacked up on the high heels, posed forward at the waist, Coppelia's frilled tutu rose up at the back, exposing a ruffled grey silk suspender belt. But no other underwear. Lori had deliberately not fitted the girl-doll she had made of her husband with any panties, and so his slick white vinyled, upholstered ass, butt-plugged in the rear and kitted out with a doll-sex version of a vaginal slit at the front, was exposed and available to anyone who might pass by.

Brad slapped a Barbie-smooth, ample ass cheek and grinned. 'Coppelia' rocked stiffly under the impact, teetering almost past the point of balance, and came to rest again. "I think this is the hottest little dolly we've had for the club since that guy... Oh, help me out here, John." Addressing the second man. "You know. The one we turned into the Raggedy-Ann doll... Guy tried to welsh on his payments, way back in '94 ?"

John scratched his head in thought. "Ah... Nope. Can't say as I recall his name now. Not so sure he can, anymore either." They both laughed. "No. But seriously, I know what you mean Brad. Happens to 'em all though, don't it ? A few weeks of heavy action, then, bingo! Those dollies... Well, they just really - become - dollies, you know what I mean ? Something in their pretty little heads just seems to sort of, you know, go... And there they are. Gone... I kind of like 'em that way... Hey, anyway. We can't stand here yakking all night if we want this one installed in the club for tomorrow night. Someone's booked the ballet school set and this fine piece of merchandise is going to be the main attraction. Let's get the little lady to sign, and we are out of here. Marie! Hey, Marie ! Get in here with those papers."

Matter of factly, Brad thumbed the pendant round his neck then roughly took hold of the frozen and feminized, vinyl-encased but now pliable form that had as recently as the previous night been his drinking partner, and with out further preamble, began raising and straightening the girl-doll's body at the waist. He moved his unshaven face close to a sculpted ear, and whispered. "Shouldn't have tried it, Buddy. There's always a few wise guys like you figure they can have all the gain with none of the pain. We expect it. But they learn. You'll see."

He pulled the plastic coated arms down, rigid and straight at the sides, working the doll's individual stiff little gloved fingers into flat blades, then begun adjusting the angle of the painted face. Slowly 'Coppelia' was becoming posed 'at attention'. Inside the female form, a man's spirit raged, uselessly... and with failing strength.

Now a woman entered the room. Slim, about 5'4". Long black hair scraped back in a pony tail, trim breasts jutting under a black roll neck sweater, cinched at the waist with a broad black patent belt. Tight black ski pants and pointed black patent pixie boots completed the ensemble. She was holding a clipboard and pen. Her face was familiar. She put her hands on her hips and smiled broadly at the mannequin in the tutu. In that moment, there was another stomach churning recognition.

"So this is our new Coppelia, huh? Well now, little dolly. You're what I call - convincing. In fact, you really seem - made - for the part " She favoured the blank painted face with a long slow wink. Could Lori possibly know ? This woman, the woman she was standing so calmly next to, was the very same woman a few short hours ago had been dressed as he now was, his little sex toy, his Coppelia. Only she had been flesh and blood, and moved with robotic pretence. Whilst he was now a thing of vinyl and paint - and could not move at all, unless posed by another.

Brad, satisfied with his adjustments, thumbed the red button on his pendant, and again the mannequin before him felt an indefinable tautening and firming across his new vinyl flesh, locking him into position. Lori began speaking to Marie. "Let me see if I've got the contract straight... Ah..." she began to read from the sheaf of papers on Marie's clipboard. "Okay... in return for letting you have my husband, hereafter referred to as 'The Doll Coppelia' or 'The Merchandise'..." Again, the cruel words cut through him. Attempting to concentrate on Lori's words he was astonished when Brad abruptly reached a beefy arm around his corseted waist, and simply lifted him clean from the floor, tucking him under his arm as if he were no more than a length of wood. He was helpless to react as, moving swiftly into the horizontal plane, his weighted dolls eyes fluttered, and snicked shut with a soft but audible plastic click. Sealed in sudden darkness, disorientated, he heard Lori still speaking, apparently not even acknowledging this latest indignity visited upon her former lover.

"...upon request and without let or hindrance, for the exclusive use of any or all of the fully paid up and accredited members of any branch of the Husymans Club for a period not exceeding six months, the Club in turn will not seek to recover any debts incurred by The Doll Coppelia in it's previous capacity as a club member... blah blah blah... from the joint account... blah blah..."

"Hey John. You got the hand cart there? I left the box out by the front door. It'll be easier to crate her up out there."

"Okay." In darkness, he felt himself carried a couple of steps, then abruptly restored to the vertical. His weighted doll eyelids fluttered, and snicked open again. He saw, reflected in the mirror by the bathroom door that he was now positioned on the hand cart, a pretty toy ballerina posed rigidly at attention, reduced to the status of an object, a thing to be picked up and moved from place to place at the whim of others. Lori didn't even glance in his direction, so engrossed was she in the terms of the hellish contract that seemed to be sealing his doom. Again, he strained to listen.

"Yep. It seems okay. And I get to have him... her... it, whatever, back during the days, so the s.o.b. can keep up with his work ?" Marie smiled: "Subject to any special events, for which you are entitled to a separately negotiated fee, yes. It's our standard contract, though of course you are fortunate that your Coppelia can earn money for you by working from home at a regular job as well. If you choose to grant her the mobility to do so, of course. Most people in your position don't have that option... Which brings me to the other option we talked about before The leaseback ?"

"We..ell. I don't know. Six months to clear the debt is one thing, but to sign Coppelia there," And now she did look at him, all dressed up and rendered absurd in his toy-like dumbness, his plastic fixity. She flashed him a grin of pure poison, "...Over to you for good... I don 't know if I hate him that much."

"It's okay." Marie said. "You've got six months to think it over. But remember, if you decide to go for it, there's a ten percent franchise holder stake for you in the Oakland outlet. We view the dollies as very valuable assets. Besides - you've seen the club... and we've seen you. I think you're the kind of woman we'd like on board. And if you're worried about your dolly, don't be. You ever heard of the Stockholm Syndrome?"

Lori shook her head.

"It's where people in... extreme situations... like hostages ? Get kind of brainwashed by it. They end up identifying with the situation. Think of Pattie Hearst... What we've found with the dollies is that after the first month or so, they come to accept the new role. Actually, they become the things, mentally. And if they look like they're heading that way - we help them get a little further with it. With some neat subliminal techniques the CIA developed, some surgery... A little of that, and it's problem solved. We've got some in storage at the club right now who paid off their debts years ago - and sister, you better believe they don't want to come back!"

Locked inside his new skin, he raged. Never. Never would he accept this terrifying new state. There had to be a way to escape. And he would find it, and then he would make them all pay...

"I'll think about it." Lori said. And then: "Okay boys. She's all yours. Take her away."

Brad tipped the hand cart back and the mannequin reclined back with it, the weighted doll eyes fluttering half closed. He felt himself being rolled smoothly out of the bathroom, and along the hall towards the front door. Through the fuzz of his new long lashes he saw a long oblong box with the lid off by the door. Stencilled on the side of the box, which appeared to be made of tough corrugated card, were the words 'Handle with Care: Fragile.' Brad stopped and brought the hand cart vertical again before the box. Straining to look down through fully opened eyes now, Lori's lover saw that the box was half full of styrene chips. A plastic sack with more chips sat at the head of the box. (No way! No way is this happening!)

"Okay." Brad said. "Let's crate 'er up." Again he felt himself being lifted: Brad and John manoeuvred the high heeled feet over and then into the box, and then he was reclining back, and back, and back into the styrene foam. His doll eyes fluttered, and closed, sealing him again in darkness. He felt rough lips against his vinyled cheek. A kiss.

"Sleep well, Princess. Until tomorrow night."

A soft pattering as they covered over the rest of the pretty plastic ballerina that now lay in the box with styrene chips, covering her completely. The sound of a lid sliding down over the box. Then, very muffled now:

"Let's get this merchandise delivered." 

 

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23.09.17