Part 1 - Kristen Calls a Friend
Kristen walked out of her class, dejected. "Well," she thought. "That's the last
final. Looks like a perfect record this year. Failed every single class..." She
hadn't done very well this semester, and she was feeling not at all pleased
about college in general. She was beginning to have her doubts about the whole
notion of a college education.
She got to the parking lot and sat down
in her car. After looking around to make sure nobody would see her, she held her
head in her hands and began to cry. Failed classes, no boyfriend, shitty job,
piece of crap - she gave the steering wheel a smack - car! Even her body was not
in as good condition as it used to be.
She had gained about 5 pounds over
the last few weeks, mostly from late night binge-fests with her books and notes
sprawled over the table. She still looked good - real good - as a matter of
fact. She had shoulder length blond hair, and stood about 5'5". Her body was in
great shape, but she was feeling very self-critical right now and if she wanted
to feel fat, then dammit she would feel fat. Drying the tears with
a tissue from her glove compartment, Kristen started the car and drove
away.
When she got home, she went into her bedroom and cried some more.
She felt fortunate that she had no roommate to see her as bad as she was. She
was really feeling at the bottom of the barrel. She wanted to be rid of
everything around her. She could think of nothing that made her happy right now.
She needed a break from the nightmare her life had become.
Something made
her call up Mitch. He was always good at cheering her up. Mitch was a few years
older than her 22 years. He had a rather ordinary house out in the country, not
too far away. It doubled as his "office." Mitch was a photographer. She
remembered him saying that he did a lot of work for catalogs and such. He lived
by himself and stayed at home mostly, so she figured he'd be home. She decided
to double check anyway and call before going out to his
house.
"Hello?"
"Mitch? It's Kristen..."
"Oh, hi! How're
things going?"
She proceeded to tell him all about her rotten week of
finals and even threw in her sob stories about her job and boyfriend, or lack
thereof actually. She had given him the whole pathetic details of her life. She
had told him how she thought everything was a mess. How much she needed to just
have no worries for a while. How she wanted to quit going to school for a while.
She broke down and sobbed, even worse than she had done in the car at
school.
Mitch heard all of her problems and listened to them attentively.
He was a good friend and really felt sorry for her. But in the back of his mind
he was hatching a scheme. She's so vulnerable now, he thought to himself.
Everything's going wrong for her. It's perfect! She'll do it in a
heartbeat... And the machine's got the capacity for one more!
Ever
since he had met her, Mitch has wondered how she would look, on display in his
studio. Now he might actually have the chance to find out.
"Come on over,
Kristen. Come over and I'll try to cheer you up."
Grateful for a pleasant
diversion, she agreed. She hung up the phone. Staying here would have been
horrible for her. What a good friend Mitch is, she thought. She hopped in her
little car and headed out for his house, about 40 minutes away.
As soon
as he hung up the phone, Mitch began thinking up a "sales pitch" for Kristen.
Everybody so far had been volunteers, and he was not about to change his
techniques. He even considered going into his studio and altering some of his
"displays" to make the idea more attractive for Kristen. Maybe even asking one
of them for advice.
He went in to the large room that served as his
photography studio and flipped the lights on. Should he change anybody? He
looked around and decided against it. He liked them posed just the way they
were. He went over to the control panel and double checked. Yep - room for one
more. Mitch was really hoping it would be Kristen. He turned off the lights and
closed the door. He went to grab a beer out of the fridge, but changed his mind.
If she was on her way already, he wanted to be stone cold sober so as not to
fuck anything up. He flipped on the TV and waited for her arrival.
- -
-
Kristen pulled up to his house and shut her car off. She was glad to be
at her friend's house. She went up and knocked on the wooden front door. Mitch
opened it almost immediately.
"Kristen! So happy to see you! Come on in."
She did and hung her coat on a chair by the door then flopped down on
the couch.
He sat down on a chair across from her, just so he wouldn't
seem threatening to her in any way. He asked her if she wanted to have anything
to drink or munch on.
"I could really use a beer..."
He got up
and got one for her and a glass of water for himself. Noticing that he was not
having a beer, she asked him why not. Thinking quickly, he fabricated "My doctor
gave me some pills and they don't mix with alcohol. I guess that's what I get
for not watching my blood pressure." She accepted his quick fib and began to
tell him about her troubles.
Look at her, he thought. Jesus, she looks
good. I had better not fuck this up. He sensed that it was time for him to
respond to what she was saying.
"Uh-huh. Yeah, I know..." and a nod of
his head. She continued to speak. He continued to gawk at her gorgeous face and
figure. Finally, he could not take it any longer. She came to a stopping point
in her story and got up to get another beer.
"Kristen, have you ever
seen any of my work? My photography, I mean?"
She popped the beer open
and thought about it, then told him that no she hadn't. As long as she had known
him, she had never seen any of his photography.
"Would you like to?"
"Sure, why not!"
He pulled out several portfiolos and notebooks
filled with pictures. He also pulled out several catalogs, ranging from Sears
and J.C.Penney to Fredericks of Hollywood. Mitch said that most of his work
ended up in catalogs now. He was proud that he had done quite a few shots that
hand ended up in the Fredericks catalog.
He opened up to one of the many
pages of sexy lingerie and asked Kristen if he noticed anything about the six
pictures on that one page.
"Look carefully," he said.
"Ummm. . .
hey, it's all the same woman." She felt proud, as if she had answered a question
on Jeopardy or something.
"What else?" he asked. "Look at the way she's
standing."
Kristen looked at one picture, then the next and the next.
Finally it hit her. "In all the pictures she's standing in the exact same pose!"
She had noticed!
"Very good. That's correct. The model is in the exact
same pose in each picture. That's actually the way many of my photgraphs turn
out. I have a special secret that lets me keep exacting detail in their poses. I
can take as many pictures as I want; my model will always be in the perfect
position."
"How do you do that?" Kristen offered. The perfect
question...
He thought she'd never ask. "Come in to my studio and I'll
show you. In fact, you can ask one of them yourself. Her name is Natalie, and
she's here now."
"She is? I didn't know that anybody else was here..."
"C'mon into my studio. That should answer almost every question you
have." He led the way to a closed door on the other side of the
house.
-- Meeting with a Statue --
Mitch's studio was a large room with all
sorts of strobe lights, backgrounds, and photography equipment strewn about. He
flipped on the lights to one side of the room only and led Kristen inside. She
looked around at all his apparatus curiously.
On the far side of the room
she noticed what she thought was a mannequin. It was of a woman about her age
(and maybe an inch shorter) of some indeterminate Asian race. She was looking up
and to her left, with a sort of surprised expression on her face, arms slightly
out to the side, as if some Spielberg-ian monster had just appeared. The only
clothing she wore was a red terrycloth robe, loosely tied at the waist.
Kristen thought that this was the most remarkable mannequin she had ever
seen. It seemed to be absolutely lifelike. She pulled aside the robe to look at
its body. Pubic hair?! Why would a mannequin have pubic hair? she thought. Just
then, Mitch came up behind her and put his hand on her
shoulders.
"Kristen, meet Natalie."
"I don't understand. This is
the most perfect mannequin I have ever seen! Where did you get it?"
"Oh,
I've known Natalie for about a year or so." He said, removing the robe. He had
only put it on her at the last moment so as not to startle Kristen - now that
she had noticed the thin black hair at Natalie's crotch he figured it was no
longer necessary.
Natalie stood there in glorious full nudity, size 34C
breasts bulging out from her chest, the exact same expression as before on her
frozen face. Kristen walked around and admired Natalie's body as Mitch began to
explain.
"Natalie looks so lifelike because she IS alive. Natalie is
just as alive as you or me.
Come here and look behind her right ear." Yes,
come closer.
Mitch lifted up the hair over the 'mannequin's ear to show
her what looked like an old hearing aid. "You see this thing? This is what I
call my Immobilizer. It sends electrical impulses to Natalie's brain that keeps
her frozen like a statue. She can't hear or see anything, and she's not really
conscious right now. It's like suspended animation, for lack of a better way to
decribe it."
Kristen leaned in for a closer look. She also occasionally
glanced down to the naked body of the woman she was in such casual proximity
to.
"Does it hurt? Can she feel anything?"
"The device causes no
pain. It was originally designed for NASA astronauts for long voyages, but the
idea got scrapped. So it's been fully safety tested. Natalie has been frozen
here just like this for. . ." - he quickly did the math in his head - ". .
.about 11 days now. Every now and then I let her move around and rest then I
freeze her into a different position."
"And she does this voluntarily?
What about her life?"
"Natalie's life was not in very good shape. She
came here very dejected one day and I showed her the device and she volunteered
to use it. She's been a model here a little over a year now. And she likes it.
She doesn't have any responsibilities at all. I feed her. I clothe her, when I
feel like it. She knows perfectly well what goes on when she's a statue like
this, namely that she is nude an awful lot. She gets a break from the rotten
life she had and I get a photography mannequin and art object."
He paused.
"Would you like to ask her anything?"
"You can bring her out of
it?"
"Of course I can! She's not dead. Watch."
Kristen stood
staring at Natalie while he went over to what she had thought was some sort of
fancy entertainment center but was really a control mechanism for all the living
statues in his studio. He turned a small knob until it pointed to 'Natalie' and
then moved the main dial about 180 degrees. There was a faint
hum.
Kristen watched as Natalie blinked a few times and began to slowly
move. When she regained full mobility, she stretched as if she was just waking
up - which she really was. She did not even seem to notice that she was nude.
Mitch came over and handed Natalie the red robe he had been carrying, helping
her put in on.
"Good morning, Nat. Say hello to Kristen."
The
freshly vivified model smiled and reached over and shook Kristen's hand and gave
a good-natured 'hello'. She moved a little stiffly, stretching her
muscles.
"Nat, what's the last you remember? Actually, what is today's
date?"
"Well, you froze me on the 12th, but I learned long ago to stop
guessing the date when I wake up."
"It's the 23rd now," Kristen told
her.
"Eleven days, huh? I guess that's about what I
expected..."
Natalie and Kristen walked over to a small couch and sat
down, while Mitch ran off to get Natalie a glass of water. Natalie continued to
stretch a little more. Kristen, her mind racing with all sorts of questions,
began to probe Natalie about her experience as a rigid display figure. She
wondered if it was painful in any way.
"No, it doesn't hurt a bit.
There's a bit of a tingle from the device behind my ear, like a mild static
electricity shock, when it's activated but that's about it. Once you feel that,
you've become motionless and can't budge, but you don't really fall asleep for
about 30 seconds to a minute later. And during that time you're not really stiff
yet so Mitch can move you around a little bit. He calls it 'fine-tuning your
pose.'"
Natalie paused for a moment, but Kristen was so spellbound she
continued on, "It really is an interesting feeling to be awake and be totally
paralyzed like that. Once I freeze completely stiff it's like I'm in a very deep
sleep. Dreams and everything. And with the exception of feeling like I've just
had a really strenous workout, I get no ill effects from waking up. Except..."
-Natalie began to chuckle- "I'm almost certain I had clothes on when he
froze me last time! I don't really care, though. Mitch is cool."
"How
long have you been here?" Kristen asked.
"That depends - what month is
this?" Kristen told her and Natalie replied that she had been with Mitch for a
little over a year. "And I would guess that out of that year I have been one of
Mitch's 'Living Statues' for all except for about a total of a week or two, if
that."
Kristen couldn't believe what she was hearing. She also couldn't
believe that she was getting as aroused as she was. Here was Natalie, a
beautiful young woman, who voluntarily spends weeks at a time as a nude statue
in Mitch's studio!
"Why did you decide to become one of Mitch's. . .uh.
. ." she felt weird saying this ". . .one of Mitch's statues?"
"My life
sucked. I was feeling so low. I had almost no friends, a shitty job, just
everything just sucked. Now, I spend all my time here, frozen, which to me means
asleep, and Mitch takes care of me. I love it. And it makes me feel good that
Mitch admires me like a priceless work of art."
Just then Mitch came back
and handed her the glass of water, which she began to sip. "So," he said, "have
you ladies been getting along?"
Natalie filled him in on what she had
told Kristen so far. They continued to discuss the arrangement that Mitch and
Natalie had made and some of the 'rules' and 'guidelines' that they had agreed
upon.
"Everybody, and you'll meet everybody else later..." He gestured
toward the unlit side of the room where Kristen could faintly make out human
shapes. Mitch continued. "Everybody gets a break at least once every two or
three weeks, if not sooner. After a bit of rest, they are frozen again and stay
that way most of the time.
They are all aware that I usually disrobe
them, although not always. But some times they are just so beautiful that they
never seem to end up wearing clothes." He good-naturedly elbowed Natalie in the
ribs. She blushed slightly.
"If I use them in a photo shoot, I give them
a cut of what I earn. Not that they have a whole lot of expenses. I insist that
they wear their Immobilizers always while they are in my house, but in the rare
instances when they do go out, they can take them off. I have informed them that
whenever they are in the house, I have the right to freeze them at any time and
without any notice. I like the idea of spontaneity in their poses. Sort of like
actually capturing a moment in time. Although sometimes I like to 'fine-tune'
their poses."
"What did I tell you?" Natalie playfully asked Kristen.
Mitch went on. "And unless they make specific arrangements with me, they
can remain as statues for as long as I wish. They've all signed, well, I call
them contracts or agreements, attesting to everything I just said."
"What about when people come over, like me?" Kirsten said.
"There
are several different clauses that I write into their agreements. Some say that
they can't be put on display for anybody but me. Others don't like being on
display for anybody they know, so when friends or people that they know come
over, they go into the back of the studio, in the dark." Kristen wondered if
anybody she knew was frozen in the darkness across the room.
-- Nat's Next Pose --
"Then there are people like Natalie, who have
given me carte blanche to display her. She even spent a week nude in my
backyard, during which time I had two parties. I really liked the idea of having
a nude sculpture in my yard, especially one as pretty as Nat." Mitch tousled her
hair a little and she smiled. "Gimme your glass, Nat." He took it from her and
set it on the floor next to the couch.
They all stood up. "Kristen, I am
going to give you a special privilege. I am going to let you decide how Natalie
will spend the next week or so as a statue."
Natalie felt a slight chill
of excitement whenever Mitch informed her before he froze her instead of just
doing it suddenly. Kristen was unsure of what to say. Mitch strolled over to the
controls, about 25 feet away. "Umm, gosh, I don't know."
"Well, Kristen,
come up with something good. Nat, enjoy moving while it lasts. I'm only giving
you another minute or so!" He reached the control panel and got
ready.
Natalie looked over at Kristen and waited for her to come up with
something. Kristen had no idea what to do. Natalie smiled and told Kristen to
make it a good one. "What's it gonna be?" she asked.
And just as she said
that, Mitch seized his opportunity and activated the control, freezing Natalie
in mid-gesture.
Kristen was speechless, watching with wide eyes. Natalie
had become perfectly still and her eyes held a glazed, faraway look in them.
"You said that you were going to give her another minute. That was only about 20
seconds!"
Mitch started walking towards them. "Ok, so I did it too soon.
But I like her like this." He stood in front of Natalie and looked her in the
eyes. "Nat, I know you can still hear me. Sorry for jumping the gun a little.
You just had a perfect look and I had to capture it. You make such an exquisite
statue!" He kissed her on the lips then stepped back to admire her. Natalie
remained absolutely motionless.
"Well, she's asleep now, so she won't be
needing this." He untied the robe and slipped it off her, leaving her there
wearing nothing at all. Kristen gasped at the ease and casualness in which he
made her naked. She just stood there staring at this beautiful naked statue,
whom she had been having a conversation with just one minute earlier, now
rock-still and nude, oblivious to everything around her.
While she had
been staring, Mitch walked across the studio and had retreived a small wheeled
cart. He pushed it over, lifted Natalie up onto it, and wheeled her over to join
her other living statue friends in the darkness on the other side of the room.
Kristen stood slack-jawed watching the whole thing.
Mitch returned and
sat back down on the couch in his studio, motioning Kristen to sit next to him.
"Well, what do you think?" He was very glad he had chosen Natalie. He thought
she would make a good impression on Kristen.
Auhor's Notes:
This story is inspired by three things:
1) an old
episode of "Wonder Woman" that used a similar device
2) the book "The
Fermata" by N. Baker and
3) fantasies and dreams I have had since childhood.