Slave Wife by Frances Gaines Bennett

Delia’s door. Delia hugged her and encouraged her to talk about it, but without success.
     
    Sadness and, she saw it so palpably, hopelessness overwhelmed Karen as the door closed behind Delia and her parents. She felt a slim hand on her shoulder. When she turned both Michael and Emeline were smiling at her. “Why?” she wondered.
    Emeline took her hand and led her toward the suite’s bedroom. “Cherie, it’s your wedding night.” Her voice was warm with sultry sensuality.
    She helped Karen remove her suit and then her undergarments. It had been many months since Karen had resisted nakedness in front of Emeline – or any of “her” staff.
    Emeline lifted the lid of a satiny cardboard box that lay on the bed’s coverlet and removed a long flesh-coloured garment unlike any Karen had ever seen. She spread a circlet of the odd fabric, helped Karen step through, then with tremendous effort pulled it to Karen’s waist. Emeline released the fabric and it constricted into a stranglehold, forcing out Karen’s breath in a loud snort and making her feel sick to her stomach.
    The door opened and Karen’s trainer, Steve, entered. Steve looked like a big brute, thick and muscular and ugly, like a boxer. He was actually, she’d learned, an
EMT
and had never shown any sign of intrinsic cruelty. In fact, Karen always found his adherence to Michael’s instructions remarkable in its meticulous neutrality.
    Emeline lifted the fabric and helped Karen slide her arms into the sleeves, pulling the skin-tight tubes up her arms like stockings. The fabric stretched, but only fractionally. It felt strange, synthetic yet silky. With her arms situated, the garment stretched across her ribcage to her sides, covering her chest but little more.
    “Lie down on the bed, Cherie.” Emeline eased Karen down onto her belly on the luxurious coverlet. The woman’s manicured fingers straightened the long fabric ends under Karen legs. Her long nails whispered like dry leaves down Karen’s skin.
    “Ready?” Karen wasn’t certain whether the question was for her or Steve. “Breathe in, Cherie.” Karen was accustomed to struggling to make herself as small as possible to fit into every article of clothing, so immediately did her best to comply. This time was different, though. She felt Steve’s ham hands grab the peculiar fabric at her back.
    Emeline never panted, not even during vigorous exercise. But now Karen heard both Emeline’s and Steve’s laborious breaths above her. Her body was pulled from side to side and constricted, like in a cylindrical vice. Over her own gasps, she heard Emeline’s uncharacteristically gruff voice, “Almost.” Then she could no longer breathe.
    They stood above her, resting. “Now the legs.” Steve’s hands were on her left hip and the tugging began again. The zipper’s motion down her leg was obvious this time … and again, down her right leg.
    Steve and Emeline stood. “Finis!” Relief flooded Emeline’s voice.
    The fabric tube held Karen in its implacable grasp, painfully, frighteningly crushing her internal organs. The blackness swimming into her vision was pierced by Emeline’s cultured, ubiquitous tones, “Breathe calmly, Cherie, and as deeply as you can.” Karen strove to settle her rushing breath and pounding heart, and the blackness receded.
    She again heard Emeline, her voice brimming with satisfaction, “Karen, come and look. You are so svelte, so elegante!” Emeline helped Karen up from the bed. The girl could barely bend her limbs in their pitiless fabric restraints. She moved, stiff legged and with an unusual cumbersome sensation between her thighs, to the long mirror.
    The garment was almost the identical colour to her skin, indeed looked like skin. It bound her from shoulders to ankles, leaving only her full teardrop shaped breasts bare. Karen goggled at her image. All the excess “baby fat” had vanished, leaving only slim curves. For a reason she didn’t entirely understand,