The Jaguar’s Room was called a gentleman’s club by its owners, but cut down to the basics, it was only a cheap, cheap strip joint.  There were places in town where women stripped, danced, and strutted their way across stage that could possibly be termed upscale, almost legitimate, but not so the Jaguar’s Room.

Even the name is stupid, Ray thought, sipping a watery beer.  The place should be called the Jaguar’s Cage or the Jaguar’s Lair or something . . . but Room?  It just didn’t sound right.  What kind of idiots ran this place anyway?

But, then, Ray already knew the answer to that, didn’t he?

They were cheap idiots.

Ray sat by the stage drinking his beer, staring up at a slattern-faced woman lurching across the catwalk, trying to looking like he was interested in her.  They watered the booze, they offered only stale peanuts for food, and they kept the lights purposefully low so no one would get a really good look at the girls they had.  Ray grimaced slightly as the dancer on stage, a blonde with black roots and overly large hips, tried to arouse him by jiggling her goods in front on his face.  She saw his expression change, and, misunderstanding it for a sign of pleasure, went on over to the next guy.

Ray felt he was lucky there was a next guy.  There are only five of us in the whole goddamn place, he observed, looking around.  Just five customers in three nights, and most of them just winos with nowhere else to go.  The Jaguar’s Room was a place, he saw, where the people who came were all either on their way up in life or seriously on their way down again . . . and it was usually down.

Which was why, as Ray’s partner had said to him earlier, the place was such a perfect set-up for them.  Nobody kept track of anybody there, and so, on those rare occasions, such as now, when someone who didn’t know better was working her way up, everybody’d just assume such a young, beautiful dancer would have eventually been moving on anyway.  No one would miss her, and nobody would be surprised when she suddenly disappeared.

It really was the perfect set-up.

The girl’s name they wanted was Tiffany, which even to Ray sounded fake.  She was gorgeous, though.  She couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, with a slim body and long, naturally straight blonde hair.  Ray had seen Tiffany dancing earlier in the evening, and she was scheduled to go on again soon, though Ray wasn’t planning on sticking around long enough to watch her last act.  Her breasts, while not large like he liked, were firm, and her thighs were muscular and tight.  She was exactly the sort of girl the boss looked for in new acquisitions.  She would pose well.  Her complexion was flawless.  She had to be at the Jaguar’s Room (stupid name) just to be perfecting her moves for somewhere else in town, another, finer gentleman’s club she had in mind.

Tiffany would have been working the Jag only a few weeks, Ray believed, and no doubt she’d be leaving it on her own soon.  It wasn’t luck that Ray and his partner had spotted her, though, for all that brief time.  They specifically kept an eye out for girls like Tiffany in situations like this.

It made their job a great deal easier.

Ray got up and left the joint before Amber, forty years old and sagging, could finish her act.  He was a short man, very nondescript, if not actually a little seedy-looking.  He tended to blend in in crowds, which was another thing that made his job easier.  He walked out to his car, got in, took out a cellular phone, and called Les.

“Yeah?  Ray?”

“It’s me.  Tiff will be going on stage in about ten minutes.  She should be back at her apartment in about two hours.”  That was where Lester was outside of now, waiting to break in.

“Great,” he said.  Then, after a pause, “She’s got company already.”

Tiffany lived alone.  Ray was surprised.  “What do you mean she’s got company?” he blurted.  “Who?  We gotta grab her tonight!”

“Hey, it’s not my fault,” Lester said.  “But it may not be a problem, or much of one anyway.  It’s just another woman, you know, maybe Tiff’s sister or a friend . . . and she’s a real looker, almost as good as the Tiffster herself . . . .”  He trailed off suggestively.

Ray was furious.  “We can’t take both of them, you idiot!  We’re not prepared.  I’m not prepared!  We don’t have enough information.”

“What’s to know?  It don’t matter.”  Lester tried to calm his partner.  “It’s the same scenario.  We just take ‘em both at the same time.”

“I don’t like it.  If something goes wrong, we’re screwed.  I only pray the police get us before Fip does.”

“We can do this, Ray.  It won’t even be that difficult, and I got the extra tool already with me.  I’ll work with the friend, you get Tiffany just like we already planned.”  He hoped he could convince Ray.  They would get a bonus probably, and he needed the cash.

Ray sucked in air through his nose, closed his eyes, and thought quickly.  He wasn’t good at it, so it took him a few minutes.  Finally, he said, “We gotta call Fip first.  He’s gotta know.”

Now, about that, Lester was hesitant.  “The auction’s on tonight, guy, you know that.  You know that’s when he doesn’t like being disturbed.”

Ray remained adamant.  “We gotta call, man,” he said.  He didn’t want to disturb their boss either, but if something went wrong . . . .  “You wanna do it or me?”

“Hey, it’s your worry, not mine.”

“Thanks a lot.”  Ray hung up, took another deep breath to steady his nerves, then called the boss.  The other end was picked up on the first ring.

“This is Fip.”

“Ah, boss, it’s me.  Ah, Ray.”  He paused for a moment.  “Ah, something’s come up.”

There was no reply.  Just silence.

“Uh, boss?”  Pause.  “Are you there?”

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense, Ray.  What’s on your mind?”  Fip sounded amused, but then Fip always sounded amused.  It was one of the scarier things about him.

“Uh, right.  Our pick-up tonight, the stripper . . . she’s got another girl staying with her tonight . . . we didn’t know, and well . . . .”

“And you and Lester want to pick her up, too, right?” Fip asked, interrupting.  He knew Ray would have gone on like that for another five or six minutes if he had let him.

“Uh, right.”  Maybe calling Fip hadn’t been such a good idea, after all.  Before, he had just been expecting one new acquisition.  Now, though . . . .

Fip read his mind.  “By all means, then, Ray, go ahead.  I applaud your initiative.  Use the plastic if you think it’s warranted, or use your own best judgment.  I leave everything up to you.”

Ray shivered.  There was maybe an implied threat somewhere in that.  ‘I leave it up to you,’ he said, and now if there was a problem, the blame would fall squarely on him.

“I’m, ah, sorry to call you so late, boss, it’s just . . . .”

“Think nothing of it, Ray,” Fip said, interrupting again.  “Call me anytime.  And I’ll see you tomorrow morning with two new subjects.”  He hung up.

Ray continued to shiver, sweating.  Now instead of one . . . and disappointing Fip was dangerous.  Very dangerous.

“I gotta find another line of work,” Ray quietly mumbled, alone, then sighed and picked up the phone again to call Lester back.
 

Thoughts similar to Ray’s were going through another man’s mind on the other side of town.  Donald Allen was also sitting inside a car, although he was outside a warehouse near the docks, not a strip-club, the address of which was provided him only an hour or so ago.  It had been the work of several days in getting, that phone call, only now, though, with the actual appointment at hand, the businessman found he was growing hesitant.

It was a mistake calling Fip, Allen thought.  Too many things could go wrong, and the blackmail potential was enormous.

Yet, if even half of the stories were true, it would all be worth it.

A man came out of the warehouse office entry a few yards away and dramatically waved at Allen.  The man was tall and thin and dressed in a black suit, and he carried a silver-tipped walking stick.  He was pale, and he had oiled black hair, and if he hadn’t been smiling so, he would have looked as sinister as the devil himself.  Allen got out of the car and met him.

“Donald Allen?  It’s a pleasure to meet you.’  The man shook the millionaire’s hand, pumping it like a politician running for office.  Allen immediately disliked him.

“You’re Fip?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, Oberon Fip of G. Limited, at your service.  Please, let’s go inside.”

He took Allen by the arm familiarly and led him inside.

“The others are waiting, and you’re a busy man, I’m a busy man, time’s wasting, and I don’t want to waste anymore of yours than is necessary.  I’ll just show you some of the merchandise I have on hand here, and if you’re not interested, hey, we’ll still part as friends.”  Fip spoke so quickly and poured so much charm over Allen, like an actor speaking well-rehearsed lines, Allen wasn’t quite sure what to think.

The situation felt suddenly unreal.

Fip led him through the office and into a long hall with a row of doors on one side.  He opened the first one and pointed theatrically at what was inside.

It was the most incredibly detailed statue Allen had ever seen.

The millionaire’s jaw dropped in amazement.  She was breathtakingly beautiful, a vision in gray-and-silver flecked stone.  The showroom’s ceiling lights sparkled off of her form.

Allen blinked and tried to admire the figure more neutrally, aware at least partially of Fip’s presence in the room.  The statue was of a young woman, nude, kneeling with her knees spread and her back arched far to the rear, her hands resting gently on her thighs.  Her face was upturned, and her mouth and glazed, featureless eyes were open.  The expression captured there was an ideal combination of surprise, fear, and overwhelming ecstasy.  Allen knelt beside her.  Every feature was there, every detail present.

She looked almost alive, like the statue was really a live woman encased in a skintight gray-and-silver flecked bodysuit.  Allen could see the individual strands of hair on her head, he found, the delineation being that great.  “She’s so lifelike,” he finally said.  “I swear I can almost see her breathing.”

“I thought you might want to look at one of the exhibits before meeting your competitors,” Fip remarked casually.  “To whet your appetite, you might say.”

Allen didn’t turn from his inspection.  He continued to lovingly appreciate the amazingly precise statue.  “Why don’t you touch her?” Fip finally invited.  “I know you want to.”

Allen hesitated, then said, “I don’t want to spoil the illusion.”  He paused, then continued.  “The artist, who . . how could he achieve so much . . . ?”

Fip reached down to his lapel, lifted the white carnation resting there, and sniffed at it gently.  “I think you’ll find the illusion, as you call it, will survive your touch.  I dare say it will even be enhanced.”  He waved abstractly.  “Please, sir, by all means.”

Holding his breath, Allen raised his right hand and slowly drew it across the thigh of the unmoving figure’s form.  The surface of the statue was pleasantly textured, he found, like soft, very soft sandpaper . . . not rough at all but rather powdery smooth instead.  She was also, quite literally, as hard as a rock.  The very denseness of her, in fact, combined with that unusual texture, proved almost intoxicating to Allen.

He pressed harder, moving his hands over the statue’s breasts, her folded legs, her sex, and as he did so, he seemed to sense something new.  It was not precisely a softening of the form, for the statue remained very hard, and not precisely a warmth either, for the statue remained chill, but nevertheless a kind of warmth and softening.

The statue was trying to tell him something, he realized.  It was . . her . . her name . . . her name was . . . .

Her name was April.

She was twenty-four years old, a model, recently moved to the big city, waiting for a big assignment from her agency, living on her own for the first time, still reveling in her new apartment, just come back from a recent shoot, tired, sleepy, sorting through her mail before going to bed . . . and while doing so she found a thick, handwritten letter among the usual bills and advertisements.  It had no return address, and the envelope was actually sealed with wax.

How cool, she thought.  It was like something out of an old movie or gothic novel.  She wondered who could have sent it.  The paper of the envelope felt rich, almost like cloth.  Was this how the agency let its models know a good assignment was waiting?  An overseas shoot, maybe, or the cover of a magazine? she hoped.  April didn’t want to damage the paper; she wanted to save it if it was good news.  She went to her cupboard and removed a pair of scissors and carefully cut the envelope open.

From inside, small clumps of grayish powder spilled out over her fingers as she lifted a single-page letter out.  It felt kind of like baby powder, only finer, and it stained her fingertips a light silvery color.  The letter, when unfolded, April saw, was almost totally blank.  It featured only one neatly scripted sentence, a command:  Kneel and assume the most erotic pose you can think of.

What the hell?  What kind of sick joke is this?  April flipped the letter over to see if anything else was written, but there was nothing.

She started to ball the paper up angrily, but she stopped when she suddenly became aware of a tingling sensation in her fingers.  At the same time a rapid feeling of warmth settled into her body, emanating from her breasts and groin.  Her nipples hardened uncontrollably, and, unconsciously, unaware that she was doing it, April sank slowly to her knees, still clutching the envelope in one hand, the one-page letter in the other.  I’ve been drugged, she realized.  That powder . . . but it was already too late.  By the time she realized what was happening to her, her transformation had begun.

April’s skin felt electrified.  The tingling sensation, from where the powder had been absorbed, quickly traveled up her arms and into her breasts.  April’s hands reached there by instinct, dropping the papers finally, and then holding, clutching, fondling the suddenly over-sensitive flesh she found.  Her breasts had already been firm - they were one of her best features as a model - but now they felt even firmer, almost rigid somehow.

It felt good, yet at the same time quite disturbing.

A crackling sound was heard in April’s ears.  Against her own volition, April began to arch back on her heels.  Her hands strayed down to her thighs and froze into position.  Streaks of grayish color appeared along her arms and streamed down past her shoulders.  The skin along those places stiffened; the muscles hardened and calcified.  April’s knees slowly spread as a fiery core of blissful heat began generating there.  The ecstatic petrification peaked.  Her breathing first slowed, then stopped forever.  April’s flesh grayed and fused into a stony plate.  Sparkles of silver surfaced along her immobilized frame.  Her lips widened almost imperceptibly in a combined last gasp of fear and delight, her blank and now featureless eyes caught facing the ceiling.

Time stretched, and in April’s dimming mind that one moment of her ultimate transformation became an eternity . . . an endless moment of erotic joy, fear, and understanding of her new place in the world.  As a model, she had wanted men to gaze upon her and appreciate her beauty.  Now, as a statue, they would gaze upon her beauty forever.  It . . . it was . . . it was . . . .

Heaven.  It was heaven, the most powerfully erotic experience Allen had ever known.

Utterly spent, dripping with perspiration, the rich man fell back from the April-statue in a kind of half-stupor.  He retained just enough presence of mind to check the front of his pants for a stain, but that was it.  He hardly noticed Fip was still in the room with him until the other spoke, breaking Allen’s reverie.

“The bidding starts in one hour.”
 

Lester waited outside in the alley next to Tiffany’s apartment building.  The scenario for that night’s action was going through his mind.  Despite everything Ray had said, he could foresee no real difficulties.  The building was run-down, just a shade away from being condemned, and the security was nonexistent.  Tiffany herself would likely have several locks on her door, as well as a chain, but one good, sharp kick would solve that problem, if it ever even came to that.  Breaking in would be a snap.

Lester was a big, imposing man, the exact opposite of Ray.  He wasn’t afraid of being alone in an alley in the city at night.  No one, not even the most desperate of crackheads, would dare to face up to his 6’6”, 300 lb. frame.

He looked up at the light in Tiffany’s window.  Every once and a while a shapely silhouette would pass back and forth.  Lester had had the opportunity to observe Tiffany’s friend earlier.  She was a cute little brunette, no more than five foot or so.  Her hair fell down to her shoulders in tight ringlets.

Whatever her name was, she’d make a fine acquisition, as good as or even better than Tiffany, at least in Lester’s humble opinion.

He checked his watch.  There was still an hour or so to go.

He wondered how the boss’s auction was going.
 

Aside from Allen, who was only now finally coming to grips with his moment spent with April, three other potential buyers were present.  Two were men, the third a woman, all, like Allen himself, well-dressed and in their forties or early fifties.  Allen recognized one of the men, and the other recognized him, but neither felt making introductions in this place would be fitting.  This was a place for anonymity.

Still, Allen guessed, I’d bet between the four of us, we could buy a small South American country.

They were standing in another section of the warehouse, a large room with a large number of still figures hidden beneath dropcloths.  None of the four wanted to be the first to peek under any of the wraps, so they remained covered.  Allen paced back and forth remembering Fip’s explanation for what he had experienced.

“I use a variety of techniques,” he had said, “ some arcane, others more scientific . . . some the product of my own research, others the developments of colleagues who share my interest.”

He had paused dramatically, then continued.  Allen had felt like he was watching a performance on stage.  Fip was a born showman.

“The quality they all have in common, though, which I insist upon, is an entrapment of the mind as well as a transformation of the body.  My subjects, my acquisitions, are all uniform in the sense that their thoughts are preserved yet at the same time caught in a kind of perpetual feedback-loop, you might say.”  He had laughed.

“Whatever their state now, they are constantly reliving that most important moment in their lives . . . their transformations into eternal works of art.”

Allen had stopped and looked at his host.  “Then what I experienced . . . ?”

“Really happened,” Fip completed.  “Their thoughts cycle over and over again, and, as a result, they gain strength and power.  They can be shared through physical contact, as you shared April’s thoughts just a few moments ago.”

Footsteps from down the hall brought Allen back to the present.

Fip came into the vast room and greeted his guests again, asking about their trips.  He had put on a pair of old-fashioned wire-rim glasses since Allen had last seen him, and his eyes gleamed behind the smoke-colored lenses.

“Are we ready to begin bidding, ma’am, gentleman?  Very good.”  The showman walked over to one of the dropcloths and pulled it off the figure it was obscuring.  A sudden collective sigh was heard in the room.

“This is Elena,” Fip said casually.  “She was once an actress.”

She was . . . an actress . . . was . . . she was . . .

She was hot and uncomfortable beneath the glaring overhead lights, but it was a great opportunity for her, this audition.  She had practiced her part, knew her lines by heart, and was willing to do anything to get into the movie.  Elena already suspected she was going to get the casting couch treatment - she was alone with the director, and she knew how things went in good ‘ol Hollyweird, she was no girl just off of the farm - and she was willing to put out, if that’s what it took.  It was only a small role in the movie, but it would get her foot in the door, might get her seen by the right people.  So far, though, the short guy behind the camera hadn’t put any moves on her, which put Elena to thinking that maybe she’d been wrong about him.  There was always a first time.

All he had done so far was shoot video of her in the studio, giving Elena instructions from behind a glass booth, directing her movements beneath those hot lights directly above the stage platform.  “All right, now I want you to stand with your feet and legs together, tummy in, chest out, your hands up behind your head.”

“Like this?” she asked.  Elena had long dark hair, and she was very fair-skinned.  She hoped she wouldn’t burn underneath these lights.  She was only wearing high heels and a red bikini.

“Yeah, but use your hands to spread your hair out more . . . yeah, that’s more like it.  Tilt a little forward . . . that’s it, perfect.  Hold that pose.”

She hoped the director liked what he saw.

“Look off into the distance, think about the part, and . . . .”  The director’s voice trailed off.  Elena heard a buzzing noise start up, and then the lights overhead became dimmer.

She was about to ask if anything was wrong, and suddenly Elena found she couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t even blink anymore.

A feeling of leaden heaviness sank into her.

What’s happening? she tried to scream, but nothing came out.  There was nothing she could do.  The red lights had turned blue, and the change in selected radiation frequencies was having a startling effect on her body.  Her molecules slowed and assumed different patterns of organization.  Her skin became shiny, silvery.

The last thing she heard before the bones in her ears fused solid was the director saying she had the part.  She . . . was . . she was . . . .

Chrome.
 

She was made of chrome.

Allen could only marvel at the transformation wrought.  Elena had been beautiful, but now she would remain beautiful forever.  The lights in the auction room reflected off of her body, and the bidders could see themselves in her polished, galvanized metallic perfection.  She stood slightly on her toes, her heels supported from underneath by extensions built into her platform, and her legs were exposed thereby in all their liquid metal smoothness.  She was nude, as she should have been; the bikini had been cut away after her body had hardened suitably.  The muscles in her calves and buttocks were clearly defined, again rendered in liquid metal glossiness.  Her breasts were upraised and revealed in precious silveriness.  To touch Elena was to touch a dream of silken excellence.

Chrome.  She had been turned to chrome.

“Shall we set the opening bid at one million dollars, gentlemen, lady?” Fip asked, and everyone in the room began talking at once.

Lester turned out to be right, Ray had to admit later.

Acquiring Tiffany and her friend, whose name had turned out to be Roxanne, hadn’t been difficult at all.  Tiffany had been grabbed first, on the street, and with her keys getting into the apartment had been easy.  Roxanne was taken while she was still asleep.

Now all they had to do was use the plastic tool.

“Any last bids?  No?  Very well, then, ma’am.  Judith is yours for an even two-and-a-half million dollars.  Congratulations on your purchase.  I’m sure she’ll bring you years of enjoyment.”

The wealthy lady bidder continued to gaze fondly, and a little dreamily, at her new marble statue.  Fip led the men over to yet another covered block.

Allen had already spent three million dollars himself that evening.  He had been beaten out on the bidding for Elena, but April was now all his.  He felt almost giddy with excitement.  He wondered where he would put her.

“And now, gentlemen,” Fip said, “the following is a highly unusual piece for which I’m afraid I can accept no bid of less than three million dollars.  Eve, you see, volunteered for her petrification.”  He removed the dropcloth with a flourish.

And what was revealed was . . was . . .

Ready.  She was ready.

Eve had always been aware of her extraordinarily striking good looks, ever since her earliest childhood in rural Ireland.  Her most prominent feature was her exceptionally long and flame-red hair.  And when she had been taken away from her small village at the age of seventeen, spotted by the man who would soon become her Lord and Master, she had known even then that she would someday have to pay a price for her beauty.

And now that day had come.

Her Master stood before her, dressed in velvet robes.  Eve knelt, her face to the floor, clad only in a whalebone corset gathered tightly around her waist, her ass and breasts pressed out and fully exposed.  She was twenty-two years old.

“Look at me, child,” the Master spoke.

She did, lovingly.  She had been well-conquered.

He held the elixir out to her, which she accepted with her hands high above her head.  “You know that there is no turning back from this.  That once this deed is done, it is done.”

Eve nodded.  “Yes, my Master.”

Then he nodded too, satisfied.  “You accept.”  It was not a question.

“I accept, Master,” and she kissed his feet one last time.

“Then pose for me, and drink.”

And she did.

And two hundred years later Allen looked upon her preserved features, unmarked by the passing of time.  Eve had remained flesh following her transformation, or at least had kept the appearance of flesh, for though her skin looked womanly soft and fragile, alive even, it nonetheless held the hardness and durability of stone.

She stood a picture from life, her hips slightly turned to one side, her back and shoulders erect.  Her wrists were crossed behind her back.  Eve’s head was bent down in submission, though a wicked smile shown on her face, perhaps revealing at the last wild pleasures fought for and remembered.  She still wore her corset, or at least a reasonable facsimile of.  The original must have long since decayed into ruin.

Touching the frozen slut, feeling the velvet smoothness of her body, experiencing the sheer harlotry of her thoughts, Allen knew he had to have her, to own and possess her.

Unfortunately, that same feeling was shared by his two competitors, and the bidding war Fip had desired began in earnest.  None of them gave thought to the Eve-statue’s age, nor to the more than passing resemblance Oberon Fip had to the Master in Eve’s endless dreams.  But perhaps that was a good thing.

There are some questions which should not be asked.

Sometime later, after the other bidders had left with their new purchases, Eve rather unfortunately among them, a somewhat dejected Donald Allen remained behind with Mr. Fip.  He was still happy about his purchase of April . . . but he had wanted the Eve too!

Fip tried to cheer him up.

“I’m going to give you a special treat, Mr. Allen,” he said, putting an arm around his shoulder and speaking to the industrialist as though he were a child.  “I know you weren’t completely satisfied with the results of the auction, although you did make one excellent purchase.  I want to make it up to you.  Since you’re a new customer and all, I’ll let you in on a little project I’ve had going on this very evening.  You might be interested.”

The merchant led Allen through another series of rooms in the warehouse and finally into a holding area of sorts.  And once there Allen saw . . . and felt . . . and saw . . . saw . . . .

Saw her best friend Tiffany turned into a stone statue right before her very eyes.  But for all the horror of it, and the direness of her own situation, Roxanne couldn’t help but admit that the stripper still looked pretty damn good.

Tiffany had been turned a dark gray, almost black color of stone, like basalt, maybe, or flint.  The two men who had kidnapped them, a short guy and a large one, had held Tiffany down and given her a shot of something from a hypodermic needle, a black-colored liquid.  Tiffany had stopped struggling almost at once.  The big guy had then stepped back and let the little guy work on her, posing Tiffany like she were only a mannequin.  She was arranged in a showgirl stance:  legs straight and slightly crossed before her, hips turned partially, and arms spread wide and angled forward away from her body.  She looked as if she were carrying a large Las Vegas-style feathered-fan against her back.

And while caught in that embarrassing, demeaning pose, a darkness had appeared and quickly spread across Tiffany’s exposed flesh.  She petrified within minutes, and the little guy - the big guy called him Ray - went up to her with a pair of scissors and cut away her clothing.  Beneath was stone, only stone.

By the time the little guy was done, all that remained of Tiffany was a gorgeous nude statue . . . amazingly lifelike in its details, but seemingly lifeless nonetheless.

Roxanne had never been so scared in her entire life.

Nor as excited, she hated to admit.

The kidnappers - statue makers - had grabbed Roxanne in bed, tied and gagged her up, and, along with a then still-human Tiffany, had driven her in a van to someplace near the docks.  She could smell the salt water.  There, in this large room with cages along the sides, they had undertaken the process of transforming her best friend into art.

Now it was her turn.

The big guy walked over to Roxanne, picked her up as easily as he might a doll, and carried her over to a free-standing metal framework in one corner of the room.  He stood her up as the little guy (Ray, his name’s Ray, Roxanne screamed inside) attached manacles to each of her ankles, then slipped a steel rod between them so that her legs were held shoulder-width apart.  Roxanne’s hands were then untied and raised over her head, whereupon they too were locked into manacles and spread far apart.

A belt assembly was attached to the framework and fastened around her waist.  A similar set of straps was wrapped around her neck a minute and connected to a spoke behind her head.  When he was finished securing her, the big guy stepped around Roxanne and worked a lever mechanism in the framework’s side.  The helplessly bound brunette was lifted up as tension was placed on certain chains and gears.  Her feet left the floor, and Roxanne found herself suspended in the middle of the framework with her eyes almost on a level plane with the giant before her.  She felt like a fly trapped in a spider’s web.

She could hardly move at all.  She could struggle, but she was caught, simply and completely.  Ray came back with his scissors and told her not to move.  He said he didn’t want to cut her.

Gee, thanks for the concern, you bastard, Roxanne thought bitterly, but she didn’t move, and within minutes her clothes were lying in a pile beneath her.  Roxanne was a short girl, but she had perky breasts and truly remarkable hips and thighs.

Ray whistled appreciatively.

“You were right, Les,” he said.  “She’ll be even better than Tiffany.  I owe you a beer.”  The other guy, Les, laughed and nodded.  I can’t believe this, Roxanne thought.  They’re talking about me like I’m a piece of furniture.

That was not a comfortable thought, she found.

Les brought over a strange-looking tool he had taken from a shelf behind him.  It took Roxanne a moment to recognize it.  Her eyes widened and began pleading.

It was a dildo he held in his hand, slightly curved and covered in small arcane ridges and bumps, with a battery-operated vibrator attached.  Les smiled, bent over a little, and inserted the tool inside Roxanne’s vagina.  He switched it on despite her muffled pleas.

Roxanne tried to relax her vaginal muscles, but it was no use.  An electric sensation began in her anus.  It traveled up through her vagina and finally ended at her clitoris.  Waves of stimulation began washing through her.  She contracted tightly around the shaft trapped inside her, helpless to do otherwise.  The first orgasm shot through her body as hard and as sharp as a whip’s crack, and not even the gag in her mouth could entirely stifle her scream of pleasure.

It didn’t stop with the first charge, either.  The sensations only grew.  She could feel the tool’s ribs and bumps vibrating against her tight vaginal walls, inducing one mind-blowing orgasm after another.  Roxanne’s hips pumped back and forth as much as her restraints allowed.  All the while, Ray and Les watched.

The tool was having its intended effect.  A shininess had appeared in Roxanne’s skin, far more than what could be accounted for in normal perspiration.  Her hair, formerly black and ringleted, became even curlier, and slowly it tightened into a wide puffball on top of her head, doll-like.  Roxanne’s struggles slowed, then ceased altogether.  Her eyes became glassy and unfocused.  Her flesh hardened.  It became plastic-like at first.  Then it actually became plastic . . . soft, yet hard . . . flexible, yet firm.

Each orgasm brought the transformation closer and closer to completion.  Roxanne was aware of what was happening to her, in part of her mind, at least, but she could do nothing to stop the process.  After awhile, she didn’t want to.  The orgasms just kept getting better and better the more she was plastic, and the more she was plastic, the more orgasms she had.  Finally, there was one penultimate burst of pleasure . . . a final ecstatic release that stretched on into infinity, and she was . . was . . . was . . .

Plastic.
 

Nothing but plastic, with curly fibery hair on her head and at her sex, and Allen loved her, like he loved his April-statue.  Roxanne was a plastic statue, a mannequin in some ways, like a giant rubber doll in others, capable of being posed any way he liked.

He bought her.  The Tiffany-statue had already been promised to another buyer, an advance purchase, but Roxanne was a bonus and a steal at one-and-a-half million.

Allen went away happy caressing his new art objects and reliving their last earthly experiences.  Ray and Lester were happy too over their unexpected bonus.

Finally, Oberon Fip was happy because he had another well-satisfied customer.

Everybody was happy.

It turned out to be all and around a good night.