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Whoever Plays with Magic... -------------- |
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It looked like a ordinary living room. A TV hung on the wall, and under it a small sideboard with a Blu-Ray player and various disc in their boxes. In front of this set, on the opposite wall, there was a sofa with a pair of armchairs on each side, as if escorted by them, a coffee table covered by a half-dozen magazines and a couple of remote controls. Rows of books filled the couple of shelves next to the TV, and covered much of the wall. This indicated that those who lived there were definitely fond of reading. Some chairs more placed in a corner for visitors, and there were some decorations, such as photographs and vases, a large full-length mirror. A mixed digital and classic clock, and an air-conditioner completed the furnishings. All this set was gently lit by sunlight let pass by a curtain of vertical blades, and beyond, a large sliding door leading to a balcony which allowed one to see the hot sun of June. In short; everything seemed a photo taken from an Ikea catalog. Except for the naked and motionless girl in front of the mirror, looking at her own reflection as if she was lost in thought. She was a young girl, hovering around the mid-twenties, with black hair in a bob hairstyle, without bangs and up to her neck, and blue eyes. Her body was athletic, without being voluptuous. She was standing on a plate of stone that was aged and dirty, bearing some antique oriental symbols. She had both legs together, with the left slightly forward, her left arm dropped by her side with her right hand slightly covering her left breast, in a sheepish demeanor. She was beautiful, no doubt. But what really surprised anyone who saw her wasn’t her beauty, but her absolute stillness. In fact, it could be very worrying as the girl didn’t look like she was even breathing. At this point, surely the hypothetical observer would have touched her, and then would have found her rigid, as if she was stone, and the observer would have thought they had been wrong, and that she really was not a young woman, but an extraordinarily realistic statue. It would have been logical. But this time, the observer would have been truly wrong. The statue was very much alive. And indeed her thought at that time was: "Oh god, I think I could never get tired of this ...” The immobilized girl was called Alli, and she had paralyzed herself voluntarily by magic. Yes, we know... After its rediscovery in objects found in some archaeological sites, the magic was strictly prohibited for its unpredictability, and only the government was allowed to have these magical gadgets for research purposes, to try to discover how the hell they worked. But on a vacation in India, by chance, Alli found what the specialized archaeologists called a “Cursed Plate”. It was an anti-thief trap, used in some tombs of kings and powerful people, which paralyzed the victim as if they were frozen. During an interval, nothing else happened, and the victim was conscious, but could not do anything. In fact, even their breathing stopped. But after time which, depending on each plate, varied between an hour and a couple of days approximately, if the contact between the victim and the plate wasn’t cut, an effect of accelerated mineralization would occur in the subject, which would result in a “de facto” statue of themself, and this time with their consciousness as frozen as their body. The plate was black, of obsidian, with an approximate size of 50x70 centimeters, with some Hindu symbols inscribed around a kind of circular design at its center. Anyone else would have seen the economic value of the plate. As is well known, when something is illegal and prohibited, if you have enough money, power and influence, it only becomes expensive to obtain. And trafficking of magical items in the black market is very dangerous, but very lucrative. But not for Alli. She saw something different. Potential. A huge potential use for a bondage fetishist like her. Secretly, and very carefully, she packed the plate and camouflaged it as a decorative piece of craftsmanship, and sent it to herself by conventional mail, to mislead to the authorities, hoping to find it in her house, once she got back from her vacation. And so it happened. She researched everything she could about the plate before even venturing to use it, despite the desire she had, at first reading everything she could find on its possible origin, translating as well as she could the symbols and engravings on the circular design of the plate, and then experimenting with half a dozen genuine guinea pigs. She discovered that the paralyzing effect of the plate needed continuous contact with the skin for ten seconds at a minimum, and the closest thing to a complete stillness to activate, and it took exactly “seven kalas, seven vikalas, and seven paras” of time to make the paralyzing effect permanent, which are old units of time in Hindu civilization, equivalent to two hours, 50 minutes and 50.8 seconds. After that, “the soul of the damned freezes as the body, and becomes stone for eternity as punishment,” or so said the curse of the engravings. And for some of the poor mammals this could be seen in the flesh. When it happened, the magical diagram engraved on the plate glistened slightly with an orange tone, and in between crunches, a polished look, as if it were a varnish, covered the body of the still rodent. And from that moment it didn’t matter that Alli withdraw the animal from the plate, the little mammal remained frozen in the same position. Even if she knocked it with something, it sounded as if it was stone, although was so extremely stiff that she needed a huge sledgehammer to break only the end of the tail of one of the frozen guinea pigs in one of her experiments. Finally, after being satisfied it was completely safe to use, she decided to talk about the plate to her girlfriend, Paloma, and to propose using the plaque in their sexual games. After the deserved anger from her girlfriend about playing with magical objects, which was not only illegal but dangerous, finally the temptation defeated her, and she agreed to Alli’s proposal. In her room, they arranged everything to make it safer for both of them. Alli would be barefoot, to directly touch the plate, but dressed in heavy clothing to protect her in case of any hit, and they would do it next to the bed, so the contact between Alli and the plate could be cut with a simple shove toward it. Paloma would wear thick shoes to avoid touching the plate by accident while Alli was on it. The first time that Alli put her foot on the plate was with a mixture of excitement and fear. First, nothing happened, and she looked at the plate with surprise, then turned to puzzled face her girlfriend, wondering what went wrong, but then she shivered and froze. She couldn’t move a finger or blink. Hell, she was not even breathing. But she could see and hear everything around her. Her girlfriend looked at her with surprise. She touched her, and Alli felt her finger on her cheek, but didn’t waver or anything, it was as if she were hard as stone. As they discussed, this first test was as short as possible, and Paloma immediately shoved Alli on the bed, cutting the contact between the young woman and the plate. She fell as a dead weight without moving in the least from her pose. A couple of seconds later, Alli shivered with a chill and writhed. It had worked, and although it had only been a minute, she had enjoyed the experience enormously. Immobility and helplessness excited her tremendously. Thus, over time, they expanded the time, always maintaining control of the situation to avoid problems, while using the plaque increasingly in their sexual games of submission and domination. The attraction of the risk to Alli meant that the limit of two hours that the two lovers had self-imposed was soon ignored. After six months of use, rare was the weekend that Alli didn’t spend at least one session of two hours and forty-five minutes as if she were a mere decorative statue for her "mistress" Paloma. And so we come to the present day. The couple had planned to go to dinner with some friends, but they had all afternoon ahead. Alli and Paloma started flirting and before they realized, they were both excited and willing to do one of their sessions of domination and submission with the plate. Carefully and slowly they pulled it out of hiding (after all, it was rock solid and weighed about 20 kilos) and prepared the alarm timer to avoid going over the time limit. Alli undressed, and while her lover whispered in her ear, put her feet on the plate and took the pose she wanted. Paloma began to lick her ear, tempting her to move, when she felt the familiar chill of paralysis and couldn’t move at all. Paloma saw that Alli was already frozen, moved around her, and reached into her defenseless partner’s crotch, beginning to stroke her clitoris. She knew for sure that though Alli was paralyzed, she not only kept seeing and hearing everything, but also felt any touch, so she was sure that caresses in sensitive areas, withthe inability to move accompanying this pleasure, would make Alli extremely hot. When a reasonable time had passed, her caresses stopped, telling Alli she also would have her pleasure session with one of her sex toys while taking a shower and thinking of her new statue, and then she would sleep for a while, until it came time to remove Alli of the plate. She winked and said goodbye. And so, while Alli is self-absorbed in her thought of pleasure derived from her sense of powerlessness, feeling as a mere object, and the ghost of the caresses of her lover, the alarm clock they use as a timer for sessions with their magical “toy” rings with five minutes left before the curse becomes permanent. She laments that it is near to the end, she has been enjoying herself very much. She has imagined herself in a museum, permanently frozen after using the plate while people watch her, as if she were a work of art. A simple thing to own, helpless, and beautiful forever. She is so excited... Time passes, and Alli sees the timer reach four minutes, and yet there’s no sign that Paloma is to appear. Has she been sleeping so deeply that she has not heard the alarm? It seems strange to Alli, Paloma is a very light sleeper and can usually be woken up by a fly fart. Perhaps she’s in the bathroom and is about to arrive. Well, a few more seconds pass and nothing happens, but after all Alli is enjoying herself immensely. She laughs inwardly, imagining herself again when the counter comes to zero, converted forever into a beautiful statue. She can feel the heat inside her building with her extreme excitement. The moment Paloma withdraws her from the plate and she can move, will shoot her hands down to fondle her clit and introduce a couple of fingers inside her vagina as if nothing else mattered. She is very excited. The countdown timer marks three minutes, and sounds the second alarm that the two women have scheduled in case of carelessness. Alli exits her fantasies and notices that two minutes have passed without Paloma appearing. Normally, if the alarm for three minutes had sounded, if her partner had not yet removed to her from the plate, she would be just about to do so. But Alli has not yet seen her, and that is not normal. Is she making a joke? Maybe she is behind her, laughing, while she imagines Alli’s thoughts, as she got nervous. But if that were so Alli would see the reflection of Paloma in the mirror in front of her. Tempting the danger by playing with the plate is good, it’s super exciting, but this is starting to get too scary. “Paloma will see when I can move again ...” thought the brunette girl. The timer reaches two minutes. Nervousness begins to mix with anger. This is too much, never before they have tempted their luck so much with the use of the plate. Alli starts screaming mentally, as if she could call Paloma, but, of course, no sound comes out of her mouth. She remains being only a rigid figure, unmoving. A statue, exactly as she has fantasized during the nearly three hours till now, and as she has many times before. But this time the danger isn’t like a dog tied with a chain just out of reach, so it can’t bite her. This time the chain is breaking. And yet despite everything, reluctantly, she notices that something in the depths of her being is still excited thinking of the impotence of her situation. Alli begins to really worry, wondering if something has happened. Then she remembers that a few months ago, on a clubbing night when she was alone, she couldn’t resist the temptation and hooked up with a waitress she met. Nothing happened, only kisses, but she immediately regretted it and didn’t tell Paloma. Maybe Paloma found out, and wants to make Alli sweat as punishment? Alli mentally begs Paloma, asking for forgiveness, claiming it was a mistake that will never be repeated. But again, the silence in the hall is still king. A king who was crushed again by the alarm clock when it crossed the border of one minute. Alli cries inside. The fantasy is getting dangerously close to reality. The fantasy of being just a statue is closer than it has ever been, and if it is satisfied, there will be no more excitement about it, because her mind will stop. She will be a stark reminiscence of the person she was before. Beautiful for all eternity, but motionless and inert. She tries, with all her effort, to move, take a step to withdraw from the plate, with the same result as her attempts to scream. 45 seconds. She requests, cries, screams, that Paloma finally appear as her savior and separate her from the cursed plate. She should never have played with it, the government is right, it’s too dangerous. If she is ultimately saved, she will deliver the plate, she swears to whoever can hear her mind, she never will use it again. Suddenly, she realizes, it seems like everything is getting darker, it is difficult for her to see, and the clock numbers seem to go faster. Her mind is slowing. 30 seconds. Thanks to the reflection in the mirror, Alli can see as the magical diagram on the plate increases its brightness and gains a yellowish hue. Something like a layer of varnish begins to cover her feet, climbing up her legs vertiginously, causing in its wake a cold sensation, followed by something like having tightened muscles, and after that a numbness so she stops feeling that part of her body, but all without the slightest movement. Alli recognizes what is happening. After seeing this in her guinea pigs, she will share their fate with them. The final stage of paralysis has begun. She is solidifying. A slight crunch, like when paper crumples, starts ringing in the living room. She hears it too, but like a heartbeat: from the inside. Fear hits her harder. Only her shoulders and head are free of the polished sheen that is produced from the final solidification when the clock strikes 15 seconds. Alli’s thoughts are broken words, her mind running, despite the excitement of fear, noticeably slower than normal. She is still screaming and supplicating, swearing it was just a game, she does not want to be a real statue, she wants to be a normal human being. She calls Paloma, cries that she move her off of the plate. She doesn’t want to be paralyzed forever. But to her chagrin, that small part of her in the depths of her being is still excited at seeing that what was always fantasized, finally is about to become possible. Forever. “Please... no... I don’t... want to be... a... statue... It was just... a game... I don’t want... it done... reality... Please... that... someone... help... me... Ple... ase...” A single tear rises in her right eye, just before it’s covered with the shell of the solidification. Alli’s thoughts completely stop when the clock reaches zero, and the brightness of the mineralization covers her entire body, including her hair, which has now turned into a solid mass. The magical design of the plate begins to flash and to change colors randomly until it disappears. A small burst breaks the plate into pieces, and makes Alli fall to the ground, hitting it with a thud, showing the new hardness of her body, without it suffering a scratch. Apparently the plate, over the centuries, had been losing effectiveness, and after a permanent petrification of such a big body as a human being, its magic was unable to endure it, and had self-destructed in the process, leaving its pieces as mere shards of rock without any power, as inert as Alli after its last show of magic. With the stopwatch counter stopped at zero, the only sign of the passage of time is the sunlight that filters through the curtain it moves until it settles on a beautiful hyper-realistic statue previously known as Alli. The warm June sun warms the polished, mineralized surface that only hours before had been living flesh and blood. But Alli can no longer feel the heat. She can’t feel anything. Neither she will feel it ever again.
----------------------- Mr. Johnson, the former lessor of Alli’s apartment, finished wrapping her rigid body in bubble wrap, before putting it in a box filled with straw to protect her, completely unaware that what he thought was a statue was actually his ex-tenant. In a couple of hours the van from the courier company was coming to pick her up and take her to her new owner. It had been a chaotic month. After hearing nothing from his tenants for seven straight days after he went to charge them the rent, he used his spare key to enter the apartment to see if something had happened. Usually, he wouldn’t even think do it, and Alli and Paloma had never given him problems in the couple of years they’d been living in the apartment, this was not normal for them so he worried that something had happened. And unfortunately, at least for Paloma, something had. As soon he entered the apartment, it hit him like a sledgehammer, the smell of putrefaction. He knew something was wrong. He found Paloma in the bathroom, between the shower and sink and over a pool of dried blood. Or at least he thought she was Paloma by the brown color of her hair, as she was in an advanced state of decomposition. The shower was on, spilling hot water and filling the bathroom with steam, which had accelerated the process of corruption. He thought he had found Alli in the living room, also dead on the floor, but was surprised to see it was a statue of her that was extraordinarily realistic. Eventually he called the police. The investigators concluded that it had been an accident. Apparently Paloma had used a vibrator while she showered, and somehow she had stepped on the sex toy, rolled with it and she fell, with the bad luck of hitting her head on the sink, breaking her neck and dying in the act. Of Alli there was no news whatsoever, and after much searching it was believed that she may have found Paloma, and in shock left the apartment aimlessly, as they found her wallet with her documents and mobile phone and her possessions. Perhaps she had committed suicide or suffered an accident, and no one had found her. The investigation was paused, just in case there were signs of life from Alli, but the police had finished with the scene and allowed to Mr. Johnson recover the use of his apartment. While he lamented of the fate of the poor girls, the landlord had lost at least one month’s rent. Relatives of the two girls demanded their personal belongings, but allowed Mr. Johnson to keep the furniture and appliances that the couple bought. Alli’s family would have none of the statue, because it reminded them so much of the brunette girl that it gave them chills. In fact, nobody knew anything about the statue, they thought she was a gift from the couple. So she ended up belonging to Mr. Johnson. Although she was really very nice, because he had known Alli and knew how things had ended in the apartment, she also caused some concern in him. In addition, he didn’t believe that his wife looked favorably at the hyper-realistic statue of a young beautiful naked woman at home. So he auctioned her online, the winner being a businesswoman from New York who, as she confessed to Mr. Johnson, after plating the statue in silver, would place her as part of the decor of her office. The lessor thought it would be a shame losing the detailed colored features of the statue, but considering what she had paid for her, which made up for the lost month amply, and almost a year’s worth more, he didn’t complain at all. And so, he abandoned his reverie, and placed the lid on the box in which was stored Alli, awaiting her shipping. Realizing finally her desire to be a mere object to be exposed and appreciated by her owner. Although she could no longer enjoy the reality of her darkest fantasies ever more. --------The End
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