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"…and he helped me fold," Rose said, grinning broadly with a sparkle in her eyes.

Heather laughed, balancing barefoot on the tall, tiny footstool.  "I told you that you could meet a good man at a laundromat."

Rose held a couple of pins in her mouth as she adjusted a seam on her model.  "You were right.  Hardest part was when I let it slip I designed the bridesmaid gown."

Heather cocked her head.  "You're lucky he didn't catch that, would have been tough to believe that a designer doesn't know how to wash her own clothes."

"Or mend her own buttons."

Rose pinned the front seam closed with deft fingers.  Although sometimes it left her legs a little numb from standing for hours on end, Heather didn't mind being the live canvas for Rose's fabric creations.  Her designs, which were heralded as innovative in the city's swanky set, made sales at the boutique hum.  The hum, though, didn't come without complications to its co-founders.  Business was picking up and with growth comes growth issues that Heather on some days barely had under control.  Rose, the creative yin to Heather's business acumen yang, had suggested bringing in a temporary to tend the register and help around the store.  Heather resisted, instead suggesting a dress model or a mannequin.  Rose would have none of that, saying there was no way she was going to find another perfect size six and a half.  Besides, she reasoned, she had to design living clothes on a living body.

The dress on the design stool today was a skirt and so far a long one at that.  Dark green silk with a ghost floral pattern, only visible if you knew it was there.  Fitted high, just above the natural waist, it hugged her curving hips tightly to the knees, where it went straight down to the floor.  The back wasn't complete just yet; Rose had begun work on the top of the long kick pleat along the back of the legs, but the pleat itself was not complete, thick matching fabric hand-sewn to the inside of the skirt but trailing downward onto the bolt of material speared onto the spooling rod.  Clippings marked with grease pencil marks surrounded them both on the floor.  It could seem like a waste of resources to the untrained eye, starting long and trimming, but Heather knew that this was how Rose worked.

Heather knew that Rose didn't usually just start talking about her creations, you had to ask.  So she did.  "Who is going to wear this?  Someone fun and flirty?  Or flirty and fun?"

Heather knitted her brow, looking at the flaring pleat.  "Fun, flirty, and fun," she said, taking a length of the silk, holding it up to the opening in the back, then letting it down again.  "This insert will handle the accordion folds, but—"

She was cut off by the ring of the telephone.  Rose reached over to the shelf behind her to pick up a cordless unit and answered it.  "Flora Couture."

It bugged Heather some that Rose answered the phone when Heather should, but that was the way it worked sometimes.  "Yes, how are you?" Rose said.  "Really? … Yes, that will be done today, thank you."  She hung up and looked up.  "That was the bank, something about a signature.  They called earlier, said something was ready."

Heather gasped and here eyes shot down to the empty space on her wrist where her watch would be, but was not, because Rose detested them and didn't want her model to wear one.  Fashion is its own pace, she said.  "What time is it?"

Rose leaned back and looked out the doorway of the back room to look at the wall clock on the sales floor.  "Quarter past four."

Heather gasped again, tottering on the stool.  "Oh no!  I had to sign some loan papers at the bank this afternoon!"

Rose, concerned for the safety of her friend, reached forward to grab and steady the stool.  "Today?"

"Yes!  If I don't sign it, we'll lose interest points!  Points are money!  I need to go now, the bank is on the other side of town!  Help me down!  I can't believe we lost track of time like that."

Rose reached up and helped Heather hop down from the stool.  "Why can't I go over and sign it?"

"Because there are so many places on that contract where they can slip in something that can bite us.  I want to make sure it is bulletproof in our favor, there are surcharges, fees, billing terms—"

"I get it," Rose said.

"You could but there is a lot on there, plus Missus Magdalena is coming by before five to pick up her suit—" she tried a few steps toward the front counter, only to be halted by a tug at her legs.  She was still connected to the silk spooled around the hanging cardboard bolt.

Rose bent down to Heather's waist and frowned, disappointed she would have to undo her creation.  "Hold on for a moment, there are a lot of pins in here."

Heather paused for a moment and looked down.  The way the fabric was stitched and fastened, it would take her valuable minutes for Rose to free her from the skirt with the goal of preserving most her day's work.  "No time!" Heather said and started pulling away from Rose and the bolt, unfurling yard after yard of silk behind her.  She was still connected after the twenty or so feet to her purse hidden beneath the sales counter.  Heather reached down to pick up armful after armful of fabric until she was freed from the bolt.  She couldn't guess how much she was holding, other than remembering the bolt from the manufacturer started with thirty yards of the material at two yards wide, folded.

"That's a lot of skirt," Rose quipped.

"Call me if anything happens!" Heather said, stepping into the red pumps that contrasted her black blouse, elevation of the two inch heel bringing the hem of the skirt just off the ground.  She slung her purse over one shoulder and gathered up the rustling silk with both hands until none of it touched the ground.

"Don't forget the package to New York," Rose said.  Earlier in the day they had loaded into the back of Heather's SUV a large white box padded full of Rose's creations to be sent for review by a buyer in New York.  That had to be delivered to the airport for counter-to-counter delivery overnight.

"Where did the time go?" Heather said as she stepped out the back door into the breezy afternoon sun and hurried to her SUV.  Hurried wasn't the exact proper term for it, with her thighs bound closely together by the pinned silken evening wear.  She made best speed, which wasn't very fast.

She unlocked the door to her car and threw her impromptu train onto the passenger seat.  She tried to get herself in, only to be halted at the knees, unable to spread her legs wide enough to make the step up.  Momentarily perplexed, she half-hopped, half-pulled herself up into the seat headfirst with the cup holder in the center console.

She found herself on her hands and knees in the drivers seat, staring at the headrest touching her nose, facing away from the controls.  A quick honk by her rump on the car horn in the steering wheel drove that fact home.  An errant kick sprung the car door first outward, then inward, closing securely behind her.  Thinking fast, she shimmied over to nearly atop the console, then half-rolled, half-collapsed face up onto the outside of the seat.  The kick pleat silk twisted up and around her knees.

She paid it no heed as she started the SUV and buckled herself in, heading out into gathering afternoon traffic.  Steering proved to be no problem but the tightness of the skirt required her to keep both feet in the vicinity of the gas and brake pedals.  The skirt itself kept her warm, but not too warm thanks to the coolness of the spring day.  The silk train however kept sliding down off the leather passenger seat with a rustle, covering the gearshift and much of that side of the front half of the vehicle.  Freed from the compacted flatness of being wound around the bolt, the silk seemed to be growing in volume.  A fold caught the outflow of an air vent, rippling slowly.

Traffic was thickening with the end of the afternoon, early shift workers heading home out of the city and parents picking up children from their afternoon practice.  She sat at stoplight after stoplight, watching the clock near the bottom of the hour, and pass it.  Even if she could extricate herself from the skirt she wore without ripping it to pieces she had nothing in the car to wear otherwise.  Her pants were back at the shop, her workout clothes at the gym in the opposite direction from the shop she was traveling, on her way toward her house.  No, she was going to have to wear it for the duration.

Heather tried to think if she could or should somehow trim herself from the excess silk.  Rose might not be too happy with the trim and the material alone cost hundreds of dollars.  If she didn't cut it just the right way there may be frays that could run the length of the material, ruining it.  Reordering would take weeks.  Then there was the matter of finding something sharp for the trimming.  She had cleaned out her SUV the previous weekend and left nothing in the car sharp enough to cut with.  Heather pawed through her purse, looking for scissors, anything.  She had nothing.

She made it to the bank at a quarter to five, fifteen minutes before closing.  She opened the door and slid out, rustling silk across upholstery behind her.  She tried to think of a nondescript way to carry all the silk in with her, but there was no chance of that.  So she gathered it all up like a crumpled piece of paper, dropped her keys in her purse before slinging it over a shoulder, and hobbled toward the bank entrance.

Bypassing the stairs at the entrance with the wheelchair ramp, she felt the stares of those waiting in the adjacent drive-through lane.  The guard at the front watching the door watched her as well as she pushed the glass door open with one hand while corralling the heavy armful of pleat silk with the other.  Heather's heels tapped across the tile as she walked up to a desk positioned just inside the front door.  The receptionist behind it did not look up immediately, tapping away at the computer in front of her.  Heather paused to ask for the bank's loan officer but stopped, feeling a roll of silk escape her grasp and fall to the floor beside her.  She gathered the silk out the way with a rustle and attempted to bend down to gather it back up again.

As she did, she felt a sharp pain backside and inadvertently yelped, nearly dropping the rest of the silk.  She stood bolt upright and spun, free hand flying to her derriere, thinking someone had stuck her with a pin.  There was no one immediately behind her, just the gawking guard.  Heather quickly realized that somehow one of Rose's pins had worked its way through the silk to prick her right cheek when she bent down.  She slowly turned back to the receptionist.

The rest of the bank had gone quiet, staring at her.  Somewhere outside, a bird chirped.

Heather threw her shoulders back, brushed back a stray strand of blonde hair in her face, and nonchalantly gathered up the dropped silk without bending over.  "I need to see your business loan officer," she said with as an authoritative voice as possible.

Without breaking eye contact, the receptionist slowly pointed off to her left with a chewed pencil.  Heather walked in that direction, heels sounding like rapid gunshots as the skirt shortened her gait to inches.

The loan officer, like everyone else in the bank, saw her unintended spectacle near.  She glanced up at the name and title posted on the outside the glass-walled cubicle, and entered.  "My name is Heather Smith from Flora Couture.  Someone contacted me about some business loan papers that needed signing."

The bespectacled loan officer snapped out of his gape.  "Yes, please sit down."  He gestured to the two cloth seats in front of his desk.  She piled the pleat silk in one seat and eased herself down into the other, ready to stop or shift if the pin stuck her again.  It did not.

For the next half hour she and the loan officer discussed papers, points and percentages.  She found that the skirt threw him far enough askew that she was in complete control of the negotiations, asking the right questions at the right time and getting terms well in her favor.  She felt the murmur eventually return to the rest of the bank, but noticed bank employees and customers alike walking by the outside of the cubicle repeatedly to get a glimpse of her.  She ignored them, focusing on the negotiations.

Eventually the signing process began and progressed to the final, large X at the bottom of the last page.  There was always a large X on the last page.  She signed it, a small sigh of relief under her breath.

"I will have copies placed on file and delivered to you in the morning," the loan manager said as he straightened the loan paperwork for filing.  "I have to ask about your skirt—"

As he said this, she felt her cellular phone buzz in her purse beside her.  She dug for it.  "It's my partner's creation," she said before checking the Caller ID.  Rose.  She flipped it open to answer.  "Yes."

"Done at the bank yet?"

"Just finished."

"And?"

"Later."

"How does it feel?"

Heather understood what she was asking but didn't want to tip her hand in front of the many sets of ears listening.  "Different."

There was a pause.  "Ah.  You have an audience."

"Correct."

"Melissa from CrystalWorx called.  Our stuff is ready but she has to leave tonight for some sort of trade show.  She wants us to pick it up before she leaves."

It was Heather's turn to pause.  "I take it that Missus Magdalena hasn't arrived yet."

"Nope."

"I still need to go to air cargo."

"I'll let you know if the divine miss M arrives.  Mellie will be there until they close at six."

Heather weighed her options.  The shipment had to go out tonight, no question.  But the jewelry was another matter.  Granted the arrangement the two shops had – Flora exhibited their wares at CrystalWorx and vice versa – was mutually beneficial.  On top of that, the Magdalena order was in the neighborhood of thousands of dollars.

"I'll try to make it," she finally said.

"That's my girl," Rose said and hung up.

Heather flipped the phone closed and dropped it into her purse.  She looked up at the suit and tie.  "I have to leave.  It was a pleasure doing business with you."

"And I look forward to it in the future," he said.  "Do you need any help back to your car?"

She gathered up the silk in her arms.  "No thank you."  She left the cubicle and headed for the door at something a little more than a mince.  She could not walk with her usual stride, knees and thighs held too close together to do nothing but slide past each other.  She quickly learned to roll her hips as she stepped, easing the strain on her legs, but she knew it made her rump wiggle inordinately, she could feel it.

The guard took his time to unlock the now shuttered front doors to the bank.  She stepped past him and headed for her SUV, feeling his gaze on her back.  She ignored it, thankful that the driver's side door faced away from the bank.  She repeated the process of tossing the silk onto the passenger seat and hopping up behind the wheel, taking more care than last to ensure she wasn't stuck with the pin again.

Back on the road, she headed for the airport.  As she drove, she could feel warmth radiating from the nylons covering the insides of her legs.  Friction, she told herself.  She also took notice that the pleat silk was now loosely wrapped once completely around the lower half of her body.  It didn't seem to be in the way but it also didn't seem like the pile of train was less because of it either.

Traffic was getting somewhat more brutal as she headed for the airport, slaloming around lost tourists darting for the rental car entrances and road warriors either about to have a passenger plane strapped to their back, or just released from it.  She headed for the air cargo section of the airport, dodging tractor trailers and shuttle busses.  Heather found the parking lot for the airline the shop had an account with, created the last time she had to ship air freight, the previous month.  It was expensive, but well worth it, able to bypass the import time of some fine textiles from weeks to hours.  The green silk she wore might have been on that shipment, she wasn't sure.

She found a small space next to a low fence.  She heard the roaring whine of jet engines beyond a set of blast deflectors positioned on the tarmac just over the fence.  She gingerly slid out of the seat, pulled the silk with her, and closed the well-balanced door.  This time there was no ramp up the front of the warehouse, only a dozen stair steps of concrete.  She made her way to the first step, gripped the steel handrail with her free hand, and cautiously tried to step up with her left foot.  The tightness of the skirt resisted some, but allowed her to make the step.

She then tried to take the next step with her right.  Just as she was planting her foot to pull herself up, the pin at her rump struck again, making her flinch and yelp.  She quickly pulled her foot back and caught the breath she didn't know she lost.  She tried with her left again and made it without being stuck.  Heather slowly and carefully forded the rest of the steps to the top.

Once there, she shifted the silk to her other hand and felt the area of the skirt over where she was being stuck, figuring that Rose would not notice if one pin was removed.  Even if she did, Heather was going to take it out anyway.  She felt nothing but the smooth drape of material.  She reached inside of that to the original foundation.  No protruding pinheads, no thin shafts of steel to be felt, just a hemisphere of silk.  Must be sideways, she thought to herself.

Undaunted, she spotted the front door handle to the warehouse storefront and entered with a tinkle of a doorbell hanging over the entryway.  Inside was the forklift operator version of a waiting room:  couch salvaged from someone's house the decade before, a couple of chrome chairs from a business surplus action, and a wheels-and-cheese calendar turned to two months previous.  Above it all in a far corner was a video camera pointed at the front door and the doctor's office-like counter, complete with sliding opaque plastic window.  Beyond sat two burly men, both in blue overalls with their names sewn over their hearts, one staring at a closed-circuit television monitor.

"Yes ma'am, how can I help you?" the nearer one said, without a monitor in front of him.

"My name is Heather from Flora Couture.  I'm here to drop off a package heading to New York.  I called early this morning."

The speaking clerk looked down into a stacked set of trays.  The other, glanced up, then down, then back up again, sizing her up.  Heather could see he knew of her predicament, likely from the video feed from the camera behind her.  "They told me about that earlier," the first one said, thumbing through papers.

Heather pinned the rolls of silk against the wall under the counter with her hips and leaned against it, freeing up both of her hands.  "I'm shipping on my account.  Last time I had to fill out a few papers before signing off."

"You certainly do."  He pulled out a short sheaf of shipping invoices and blank packing slips, simultaneously checking the status of her shipment on his computer.  "You'll have to fill these out unless you went online earlier and printed your own."

Heather reached for her pen and her phone in her purse.  "We don't have a working printer in the shop."

"Ah," the clerk said.  She accessed her email through her phone to get the ship-to address, then started filling boxes and signing lines.  The pleat silk slowly began to shift and slide as she wrote, forcing her to stop often to readjust.  She could hear voices in the warehouse, moving palettes and boxes.  The second clerk got to his feet at one point and went into the back.

"And here is your copy," the clerk said after she finished the paperwork and handed it to him.  He slid a pink carbon copy back to her.

"Thank you."  She folded it neatly and stuck it in her purse.  "It is outside in my car.  It's not very heavy, but I need help getting it inside."

"Will do."  The clerk leaned forward and toggled a stick microphone.  "Assistance to the front, assistance to the front!" the speakers in the back boomed.

She gathered the excess silk to her chest and toddled to the front door.  The clerk rose to his feet.  "I'll send them out in a – whoa."

Heather turned back.  The clerk stood looking out the portal over the counter, eyes locked on her skirt.

"Yes?" she said to break his stare.

He didn't look up.  "I'll send them out in a second."

"Thank you."  She opened the front door and headed for the stairs, hoping to descend them before the help arrived.  Thanks to gravity, it was faster going, but halfway down she looked up to see five men coming out of the warehouse and watching her try to walk.

She completely disregarded the number of men.  "The package is in the back," she said, then looked at her SUV.  While she was inside filling out forms, a large white delivery truck had parked in the space adjoining her, close, effectively blocking entrance from the side.  "Drat," she said.

The rear hatch, however, was still accessible.  She reached into her purse for her key fob, pressing the buttons to unlock and disarm as well as open the hatch.  As she stepped from the last step to the curb, she saw the hatch rise on its own.  She walked around the front of both her SUV and the delivery truck to make the one last step to the ground.  The pleat silk in her arms threatened to escape, but did not.

She glanced back to see men following her.  "Like I said, this is not very heavy, just bulky.  Please be careful with it."

"Yes ma'am," said the chorus in disunion as it came down the stairs and to the rear of her car.

She stood to the side as rough hands reached in for the package the size of a dinner table top out and to the ground.  The original clerk stuck a mailing sleeve onto the front and slid in a copy of her shipping form.  A sticker practically shouting fragile went beside it.  "We'll take it from here."

For a moment, an awkward nothing happened, the men regarding the woman trapped in her own skirt.  On the other side of the blast deflectors a private aircraft rolled by.  Heather pointedly noticed that no one offered to go find the driver of the van to ask him to move it.

So she improvised.  "I'll be leaving then," she said, throwing the silk she carried into the rear of the SUV.  In one fluid motion she jumped up through the hatch behind it, clearing the bumper and pivoted on her hip and purse, swinging her feet inside.  She ended up in repose, reaching up and out for the hanging strap to close the hatch.

She made eye contact with the clerk.  "I will call my contact in New York and notify them it is on its way, good bye."

"Wow, what are you, a gymnast?" he said.

"Once."  She pulled the hatch closed and immediately hit the appropriate button on the fob in her purse to lock it.  Taking a breath behind tinted windows, she took stock of what she had to do to get to the front seat.  She looped her purse over her neck as she pivoted again with a rustle of silk across the plastic floor mat of the cargo area.  She crawled across the folded third row of seats in the SUV, then wormed over the second.  A second and third pin along the back of her thighs chose to strike as she pulled herself through the gap over the center console.  Trying to avoid honking the horn with her bum again, Heather first climbed partially into the passenger seat and then eased her feet under the steering wheel down to the pedals.  One last push sat her upright in the driver's seat.

She glanced in the rear-view mirror.  She had left a trail; the inside of the SUV now looked like it was upholstered in the same green silk with floral ghost pattern.  The ultimate accessory.

She put her purse down next to her and reached for the ignition keys.  The silk was now wrapped many times around her, twisting away like a cocoon, covering her shoes.  She reached down to uncover them.  Her feet were now firmly bound together and she had no way of loosening the skirt without getting out.  She glanced into the side mirror, which nearly touched the delivery van.  She was still being watched.

Unperturbed, she started the SUV, turned the air conditioner on high for she felt herself getting too warm from her exertions, and uncovered the gear selector to shift into reverse.  The warehouse workers dispersed from behind her, clearing a path.  One, then many, waved her backward, guiding her out with motioning hands and unfulfilled expressions.

She eased the SUV out of the parking space, minding the van, the wall and the men.  She flashed a smile and wave at them as she changed gears to drive and drove away, heading back downtown and CrystalWorx.

She sighed in relief again then texted New York while waiting at a stop light to inform them of the shipment and the tracking number.  As soon as she finished, her phone began to ring in a different ring tone.  She recognized the melody immediately and answered it.  "Hey babe."

"Hiya sweetie," her man's voice responded.

"Still at the office?"

"I'm on the interurban platform now and can see the train coming.  Where are you?"

"Running errands before everything closes.  Rose had me busy earlier."

"How close are you to the station?"

She knew the station was downtown as well, near the jeweler.  "Not very right now, but I can be."

"I can get a ride home with the guys, but they don't smell nearly as nice as you."

She smiled, feeling herself blush.  "I'll make sure I don't give out any cologne next Christmas."

He laughed.  "Good move.  I'll see you in around half an hour then?"

She looked down at herself, debating.  Flora was also close to the station, but not as close.  "I might be a little late, I'll call you, but I'll be there."

"I'm looking forward to it.  I love you."

"I love you too."

She looked at the clock in the dashboard as she hung up.  Twenty to six.  It was going to be close.  Fortunately driving into town and against traffic was faster than coming out.

She called Mellie, asked if she could wait a few minutes.

"Sure, hun, I'll be here," Mellie said with all her usual warmth.

Heather's next call was back to Rose.

"Still have the skirt on?" was the seamstress's first question.  She was still at the shop.

"Of course.  You put a number of pins in it."

"Did I?  I had no idea."

"Is that glib?  You sound glib."

"What?"

"Nevermind.  Did Missus Magdalena make it by yet?"

"She just left.  Our coffers are filled."

"Good, package shipped as well.  I sent a text."

"Great.  Forward that to me too and I'll call the buyer to follow up."

"Sure.  I might be by to get this skirt off before I go get Dave at the station."

"Might?"

Heather paused, unsure how to read that might.  "Do you want me to come by sooner?"

"No, silly girl, I want you to show yourself off to your man!"

"Really?"

"Yes!  And I want all the details after you do.  You going around town like this is great advertising for us, you know."

"Advertising?"  Heather didn't think of herself as a billboard in the skirt, just trapped.

"Yes.  I bet we hear back about this before the week is out, especially after you go meet with Millie.  Tongues wag."  The phone on Rose's end clicked, signifying another call coming in.  "I have to get that.  Have fun!"  The seamstress hung up.

Heather glanced at the clock as she removed her earbud.  Five minutes to six.  The edge of downtown was in sight.  She looked down at the skirt.  Lifting both feet to accelerate and brake was tiring and awkward.  She tried to spread her legs apart, only able to get an inch of space between her heels.  The windings from her afternoon's exertions had slid down some, revealing the base layer around her hips and bunching around her legs.  She was going to have to loosen it some if she was going to take one step out of the SUV.  Still, it certainly looked and felt luxurious.  Rose had outdone herself.

The low sun was casting dark shadows on orange buildings as she pulled up a parking meter in the front of CrystalWorx just after six.  The jeweler was located on the ground floor of an office building, with display windows of mannequins wearing Flora Couture clothes.  Heather could see Mellie inside, helping a late customer.  The driver's side door of the SUV opened out in full view of the front of the store, so Heather was going to have to do what she could before hopping out.  She tried feeding some the wrapped silk as she forced her legs apart.  The silk seemed to lose its slippery properties and didn't move very much, only allowing her a few inches more room.

She kept trying, unaware of a tap at her window until it came.  She jumped.

Mellie smiled back at her, broadly.

Giving up, Heather gathered her purse, the trailing silk from the rear of the SUV and opened the door.

"Wow, look at you!" the jeweler said, impressed.

"Thanks," Heather responded, sliding out.  "I need a little help."

Heather took her elbow and helped her to the curb.  "Wow, that is a definite show-stopper you have there!"

"Rose isn't finished with it yet."  She swung the door closed behind her.

"Ah!  What is this, silk?"  Mellie felt a roll of the material in Heather's arms.

"Yes.  Some of the best."  Heather noticed a few pedestrians on the sidewalk spot her and gawk.

So did Mellie.  "Surely.  Let's get you inside so I can show you what I have."

The jeweler held both airlock-style double doors open for Heather before locking both behind them, flipping around the old-fashioned hanging sign beside the entrance from open to closed.  Heather hard to quickly roll one thigh in front of the other to walk, adding a different rubbing pitch of her nylons to the rustle of the silk.  Mellie couldn't get enough of the skirt.  "So this is a brand new creation?"

"Yes, Rose was putting it together this morning.  I model for her sometimes."

"I see.  So why are you still wearing it now?"

"I had to run out to get a few things done before closing."

Mellie rounded the main counter.  "Like getting this from me, I'm sorry I put you through that."  She pulled out dark wooden display case the size of a safety deposit box.

"Apology not accepted!  It isn't your fault at all!" Heather laughed, laying the pleat silk on the counter next to her.  Rolls and folds spilled across spotless glass.  "I lost track of time, didn't get moving until late."

Mellie laughed with her and opened the box.  Inside was a small selection of wearables for the shop, some upper end costume jewelry to put on the window displays back at the shop, others pricey enough to keep under lock and key, all for sale.  Mellie showed Heather how to work the backings of each one.

"So how high does that skirt go?" Mellie asked.

Heather raised the hem of her blouse.  "It's high-waisted, comes up to the bottom of my rib cage."

"I've got the perfect thing for you."  Mellie headed for the back, leaving Heather to stand and wonder for a few moments.  She heard the jeweler rummaging through her back room, checking drawers.

"Aha!" the cry finally came.  Mellie came back out with something dark and beaded in her hands.  "This is something we made for a belly dancer a few years ago that ordered it but didn't pick it up.  Raise your blouse again, I think it would look smashing on you."

Mellie approached Heather's waist.  Heather looked down as strings of black beads encircled her waist.  From the larger beads hung many smaller strands, leading down over her hips to the tops of her thighs like a short apron, to another horizontal band holding them together.  The beads themselves were glittery black spheres arranged in a small – medium – large – medium – small pattern.

The jeweler fastened it shut with a click at Heather's back.  "Feel them, they are perfectly smooth, nothing to pull at the silk."

Heather reached down and felt the beads.  They had some weight to them.  "Are these black pearls?"

"No, rainbow obsidian.  Volcanic glass.  A pain to cut and polish but beautiful and durable."

Heather shook her hips.  She could feel the beads roll across her sin through the silk and lining of the skirt.  They faintly tapped together solidly.

"Walk some, I'll mind your train," Mellie said, gathering up the pleat silk for her.

Heather took a few hobbled steps across the carpeted floor.  The beads swished and swirled, catching the light and scattering it.  "It's beautiful."

"It's perfect.  I think I'll have another one done for when Rose makes me another one of those skirts for my shop window."

"Another?"

"Yes!  Consider that one on loan for when you wear that skirt out."

"Well thank you!  I'll tell Rose and get her to make you another skirt."

At that moment Heather walked too far away from Mellie and the rest of the pleat silk.  With a step Heather suddenly pulled it taut, tightening the wrapped silk around her.  She froze, keeping her balance.  "When it's finished, of course," Heather said.

Mellie giggled and let out more silk.  "Of course!"

Heather ran her hands through the beads again.  "Is this pattern in the front in the back as well?"

"No, it's different."  Mellie put the silk down on a nearby chair and angled one of the counter mirrors downward.  Heather saw herself and turned.  "There's fewer strands, most right down the middle in the back, see?  Just in case you want to sit down, it collapses in a certain way where it won't feel like you are sitting on marbles."

Heather checked herself out in a mirror for the first time that day.  Rose had made the skirt very well, to hug her curves just right:  slimming the waist, hugging her rump, emphasizing her hips and thighs.  It gave her sex appeal she wasn't aware she had.

"Um, do you want me to cut some of this train off for you?"

Heather considered the offer.  If it would have came an hour previous, she would have responded an emphatic yes.  She was close to the shop, close to the end of the day, close to seeing her man, but she remembered what Rose said.  She had to show this to Dave.  All of it.

"No, that's okay, I'm heading back to the shop anyway."  She looked up at the clock.  "And close to getting Dave at the train station.  I have to leave."

"Your fiancée will like that skirt, I know it," Mellie said, getting the box of jewelry for her and following her out to her SUV.

The jeweler put the box in the back seat.  "I'll call Rose, tell her you have this and to not wait up for you."

Heather blushed and tossed her train into the passenger seat.  "Thank you."  She hopped up behind the wheel.

Mellie closed her door behind her.  "Go get him, girl!"

Heather drove off, heading for the station a few blocks away.  She found her phone in her purse and dialed it.  It immediately went to voice mail.  "You must be in a tunnel.  I'm almost at the station.  I love you."

She pulled into the railway parking lot.  Ridership was up recently, so far up that the rail line had bulldozed a nearby abandoned warehouse and installed a gravel parking lot, dust-abated as per city ordinance.  The city didn't want downtown covered in blowing white and gray dust, bad for business.

Seeking to avoid being blocked in again, she drove into that lot and found a space, far enough away from the station to be private but close enough to see through the passenger window.  She shut off the engine and looked down at herself in the gathering dusk.  Yes, the skirt was tight and definitely cumbersome and unfinished, but she did look great in it.  Like she did in most of Rose's creations, but more so now, in this skirt.  Maybe it was the fact there were no laces to tie, no zippers to catch.  Smooth all the way around, except for the beads.  It took a long time to get into the skirt and it may take a long time for Dave to get her out.

The warmth returned again to the insides of her legs.  This time, though, it wasn't the rubbing of the nylons.

Heather felt that the walking at CrystalWorx had loosened something somewhere on the skirt, she wasn't sure what.  It didn't feel as tight as it did.  She felt around for anything caught, anything loose.

"Ouch!" she found the tip of a pin with her finger, pointy enough to be noticed, not enough to draw blood.

She sucked on her finger for a moment, thinking.  There was no way to tighten up the wrap effect in here without climbing around again, she had to get out and do it.  She levered the door open and slid out, heels crunching softly on the gravel.  She tottered for a moment then regained her balance.  The movement propagated into the beading at her middle, spheres rubbing and clicking away at her front and backside.

They felt like hands to her.  A man's hands.

She pulled the pleat silk out some and placed the pile onto the driver's seat.  The weighty pile was now fluffy enough to take up most of the space in the seat behind the steering wheel.  Heather pulled out a few lengths of the material connected closest to her, and laid them on top.  She slowly walked backwards away from the open SUV, guiding the taut silk to stay off the gravel, and stopped when the pile threatened to fall out of the vehicle, eight feet away.

Guiding the silk around her legs with one hand on the top of the folded silk and the other near the bottom, she slowly spun in the direction of the twist.  She wrapped layer after layer around her, keeping her legs wide enough apart to be able to move and the silk low enough for the beading to still be seen prominently.  Once she neared the car, she rearranged the pile again and confidently backed fifteen feet away, breeze caressing her hair and rustling the silk.

After the next full turn, the breeze betrayed her.  An errant wind kicked up, swirling around a nearby building.  The wind buffeted the silk and pushed against open SUV door.  She lunged for the door.  At that moment, many things happened.

The wind pushed the car door closed, slamming it shut, trapping the silk in the doorjam.

Heather's heels found a loose spot in the gravel, taking her footing away from her.

Caught between lunging and falling, Heather tried to stand up and back, trying to regain balance, but losing it.  She first started to fall backward, but the rigid silk pulled her forward.  She twisted and turned, old gymnastics reflexes kicking in to keep her from falling flat and hard, putting one hand out to transfer energy away from straight down.

All of her movements combined to send her into a horizontal roll toward the SUV in the direction of the silk.  The green fabric quickly traveled up her body as she rolled, covering the beads at her hips, her waist, her chest, her arms.

It took her a moment to chase her dizziness away.  She came to rest beside the SUV, face up, green silk wrapped to her nose.  Only her hair and the top her of her head to her nose was free, as well as the fingertips of one hand.  The other was trapped along her body.

"Mmmph!"  she tried to speak but the silk bound her tightly, still leading up to the closed car door, most of the weight of her upper body on the last wrap of silk around her mouth.  She tried to move but only succeeded in a worm-like wiggle.  Only her fingertips had some degree of freedom.  She was trapped.

She looked down at herself.  She was completely cocooned in yard after yard of green, down to her feet which were covered in a bulbous roll of silk.  Beyond her was empty parking lot and beyond that was a wall.  No one could see her from the street, the station, or the train tracks.  She did not feel as if she should panic.  This was an accident, and a potentially embarrassing one at that, one she knew from which she could extricate herself.

She tried to push herself with her feet but could only move gravel.  Heather tried biting at the silk to move it aside so she could shout.  She felt the fabric slide some away from the bottom of her nose, but not far enough.  She attempted to pivot and roll her shoulders against the twist but that only tightened the fabric around her mouth and drove two pins into her backside.

"MMMPCH!" she mumbled.

She found a position where the pins retracted, and froze there.  The silk crammed her lower hand against her crotch, and beneath her palm were a few of the larger obsidian orbs from the beading.  She tried to move her arm, but only succeeded in grinding the beads into her privates.

She blushed, resisted, then tried it again.  It wasn't much movement, but it was definitely something for her.

As she laid there trying to think of what to try next, she heard the crunch of tires on rock.  She turned her head and could see just underneath the SUV.  A car was driving into the lot, headlights sweeping across the far side of her car.  The car pulled into a space much closer to the station and stopped.  She did not see anyone get out.

Heather debated if she should make noise or try and stay quiet.  Dave was coming, he would rescue her.  Would he see the SUV from the station?  Her vehicle was a late model, fairly ubiquitous, blended in with the crowd.

She tried to move again but only succeeded in more futile struggling.  It was getting dark.  Someone was watching her, maybe from that car, from somewhere else.  Someone would find her, they had to find her, soon –

"Hi there."

She looked up, startled.

Dave dropped his briefcase and rushed to her side, supporting her head.  He opened the door, releasing the tension on the silk, lowering her into his arms.  He pulled down her silken gag.

"Are you ok—" she kissed him hard, repeatedly.  He kissed her right back.

"My hero," she said between kisses.

"What happened?" He helped her up to a sitting position.

"I was trying to tighten up my skirt, and this big wind came and shut the door and I fell."

"Are you alright?  Did you hurt anything?"

"Just my pride.  I'm okay."

As he tried to unwrap her, the rest of the silk in the driver's seat chose that moment to slide off the seat onto both of them.  They locked gazes then started to laugh.

"Let just get out of here," she said.

At first, he tried to stand her up on her feet, but she stopped him, not wanting to grind too much dirt and dust into the silk by standing on it.  "This isn't going to work," she said.  "Carry me."

He paused, agreed, then effortlessly swept her into his arms.  He carried around the other side of the SUV, gently laying her in the passenger seat, piling the pleat silk on the floorboard at her feet and buckling her in.

Dave circled back and slipped in behind the wheel.  "Talk about getting wrapped up in your work!  Do we need to get back to the salon?"

Heather looked over at him.  "Come here."

He leaned close.

She kissed him, hard, passionately, tongue probing, free fingers finding his lapel and keeping him close.

They didn't go back to the salon that night.

Description
"…and he helped me fold," Rose said, grinning broadly with a sparkle in her eyes.

Heather laughed, balancing barefoot on the tall, tiny footstool.  "I told you that you could meet a good man at a laundromat."

Rose held a couple of pins in her mouth as she adjusted a seam on her model.  "You were right.  Hardest part was when I let it slip I designed the bridesmaid gown."

Heather cocked her head.  "You're lucky he didn't catch that, would have been tough to believe that a designer doesn't know how to wash her own clothes."

"Or mend her own buttons."

Rose pinned the front seam closed with deft fingers.  Although sometimes it left her legs a little numb from standing for hours on end, Heather didn't mind being the live canvas for Rose's fabric creations.  Her designs, which were heralded as innovative in the city's swanky set, made sales at the boutique hum.  The hum, though, didn't come without complications to its co-founders.  Business was picking up and with growth comes growth issues that Heather on some days barely had under control.  Rose, the creative yin to Heather's business acumen yang, had suggested bringing in a temporary to tend the register and help around the store.  Heather resisted, instead suggesting a dress model or a mannequin.  Rose would have none of that, saying there was no way she was going to find another perfect size six and a half.  Besides, she reasoned, she had to design living clothes on a living body.

The dress on the design stool today was a skirt and so far a long one at that.  Dark green silk with a ghost floral pattern, only visible if you knew it was there.  Fitted high, just above the natural waist, it hugged her curving hips tightly to the knees, where it went straight down to the floor.  The back wasn't complete just yet; Rose had begun work on the top of the long kick pleat along the back of the legs, but the pleat itself was not complete, thick matching fabric hand-sewn to the inside of the skirt but trailing downward onto the bolt of material speared onto the spooling rod.  Clippings marked with grease pencil marks surrounded them both on the floor.  It could seem like a waste of resources to the untrained eye, starting long and trimming, but Heather knew that this was how Rose worked.

Heather knew that Rose didn't usually just start talking about her creations, you had to ask.  So she did.  "Who is going to wear this?  Someone fun and flirty?  Or flirty and fun?"

Heather knitted her brow, looking at the flaring pleat.  "Fun, flirty, and fun," she said, taking a length of the silk, holding it up to the opening in the back, then letting it down again.  "This insert will handle the accordion folds, but—"

She was cut off by the ring of the telephone.  Rose reached over to the shelf behind her to pick up a cordless unit and answered it.  "Flora Couture."

It bugged Heather some that Rose answered the phone when Heather should, but that was the way it worked sometimes.  "Yes, how are you?" Rose said.  "Really? … Yes, that will be done today, thank you."  She hung up and looked up.  "That was the bank, something about a signature.  They called earlier, said something was ready."

Heather gasped and here eyes shot down to the empty space on her wrist where her watch would be, but was not, because Rose detested them and didn't want her model to wear one.  Fashion is its own pace, she said.  "What time is it?"

Rose leaned back and looked out the doorway of the back room to look at the wall clock on the sales floor.  "Quarter past four."

Heather gasped again, tottering on the stool.  "Oh no!  I had to sign some loan papers at the bank this afternoon!"

Rose, concerned for the safety of her friend, reached forward to grab and steady the stool.  "Today?"

"Yes!  If I don't sign it, we'll lose interest points!  Points are money!  I need to go now, the bank is on the other side of town!  Help me down!  I can't believe we lost track of time like that."

Rose reached up and helped Heather hop down from the stool.  "Why can't I go over and sign it?"

"Because there are so many places on that contract where they can slip in something that can bite us.  I want to make sure it is bulletproof in our favor, there are surcharges, fees, billing terms—"

"I get it," Rose said.

"You could but there is a lot on there, plus Missus Magdalena is coming by before five to pick up her suit—" she tried a few steps toward the front counter, only to be halted by a tug at her legs.  She was still connected to the silk spooled around the hanging cardboard bolt.

Rose bent down to Heather's waist and frowned, disappointed she would have to undo her creation.  "Hold on for a moment, there are a lot of pins in here."

Heather paused for a moment and looked down.  The way the fabric was stitched and fastened, it would take her valuable minutes for Rose to free her from the skirt with the goal of preserving most her day's work.  "No time!" Heather said and started pulling away from Rose and the bolt, unfurling yard after yard of silk behind her.  She was still connected after the twenty or so feet to her purse hidden beneath the sales counter.  Heather reached down to pick up armful after armful of fabric until she was freed from the bolt.  She couldn't guess how much she was holding, other than remembering the bolt from the manufacturer started with thirty yards of the material at two yards wide, folded.

"That's a lot of skirt," Rose quipped.

"Call me if anything happens!" Heather said, stepping into the red pumps that contrasted her black blouse, elevation of the two inch heel bringing the hem of the skirt just off the ground.  She slung her purse over one shoulder and gathered up the rustling silk with both hands until none of it touched the ground.

"Don't forget the package to New York," Rose said.  Earlier in the day they had loaded into the back of Heather's SUV a large white box padded full of Rose's creations to be sent for review by a buyer in New York.  That had to be delivered to the airport for counter-to-counter delivery overnight.

"Where did the time go?" Heather said as she stepped out the back door into the breezy afternoon sun and hurried to her SUV.  Hurried wasn't the exact proper term for it, with her thighs bound closely together by the pinned silken evening wear.  She made best speed, which wasn't very fast.

She unlocked the door to her car and threw her impromptu train onto the passenger seat.  She tried to get herself in, only to be halted at the knees, unable to spread her legs wide enough to make the step up.  Momentarily perplexed, she half-hopped, half-pulled herself up into the seat headfirst with the cup holder in the center console.

She found herself on her hands and knees in the drivers seat, staring at the headrest touching her nose, facing away from the controls.  A quick honk by her rump on the car horn in the steering wheel drove that fact home.  An errant kick sprung the car door first outward, then inward, closing securely behind her.  Thinking fast, she shimmied over to nearly atop the console, then half-rolled, half-collapsed face up onto the outside of the seat.  The kick pleat silk twisted up and around her knees.

She paid it no heed as she started the SUV and buckled herself in, heading out into gathering afternoon traffic.  Steering proved to be no problem but the tightness of the skirt required her to keep both feet in the vicinity of the gas and brake pedals.  The skirt itself kept her warm, but not too warm thanks to the coolness of the spring day.  The silk train however kept sliding down off the leather passenger seat with a rustle, covering the gearshift and much of that side of the front half of the vehicle.  Freed from the compacted flatness of being wound around the bolt, the silk seemed to be growing in volume.  A fold caught the outflow of an air vent, rippling slowly.

Traffic was thickening with the end of the afternoon, early shift workers heading home out of the city and parents picking up children from their afternoon practice.  She sat at stoplight after stoplight, watching the clock near the bottom of the hour, and pass it.  Even if she could extricate herself from the skirt she wore without ripping it to pieces she had nothing in the car to wear otherwise.  Her pants were back at the shop, her workout clothes at the gym in the opposite direction from the shop she was traveling, on her way toward her house.  No, she was going to have to wear it for the duration.

Heather tried to think if she could or should somehow trim herself from the excess silk.  Rose might not be too happy with the trim and the material alone cost hundreds of dollars.  If she didn't cut it just the right way there may be frays that could run the length of the material, ruining it.  Reordering would take weeks.  Then there was the matter of finding something sharp for the trimming.  She had cleaned out her SUV the previous weekend and left nothing in the car sharp enough to cut with.  Heather pawed through her purse, looking for scissors, anything.  She had nothing.

She made it to the bank at a quarter to five, fifteen minutes before closing.  She opened the door and slid out, rustling silk across upholstery behind her.  She tried to think of a nondescript way to carry all the silk in with her, but there was no chance of that.  So she gathered it all up like a crumpled piece of paper, dropped her keys in her purse before slinging it over a shoulder, and hobbled toward the bank entrance.

Bypassing the stairs at the entrance with the wheelchair ramp, she felt the stares of those waiting in the adjacent drive-through lane.  The guard at the front watching the door watched her as well as she pushed the glass door open with one hand while corralling the heavy armful of pleat silk with the other.  Heather's heels tapped across the tile as she walked up to a desk positioned just inside the front door.  The receptionist behind it did not look up immediately, tapping away at the computer in front of her.  Heather paused to ask for the bank's loan officer but stopped, feeling a roll of silk escape her grasp and fall to the floor beside her.  She gathered the silk out the way with a rustle and attempted to bend down to gather it back up again.

As she did, she felt a sharp pain backside and inadvertently yelped, nearly dropping the rest of the silk.  She stood bolt upright and spun, free hand flying to her derriere, thinking someone had stuck her with a pin.  There was no one immediately behind her, just the gawking guard.  Heather quickly realized that somehow one of Rose's pins had worked its way through the silk to prick her right cheek when she bent down.  She slowly turned back to the receptionist.

The rest of the bank had gone quiet, staring at her.  Somewhere outside, a bird chirped.

Heather threw her shoulders back, brushed back a stray strand of blonde hair in her face, and nonchalantly gathered up the dropped silk without bending over.  "I need to see your business loan officer," she said with as an authoritative voice as possible.

Without breaking eye contact, the receptionist slowly pointed off to her left with a chewed pencil.  Heather walked in that direction, heels sounding like rapid gunshots as the skirt shortened her gait to inches.

The loan officer, like everyone else in the bank, saw her unintended spectacle near.  She glanced up at the name and title posted on the outside the glass-walled cubicle, and entered.  "My name is Heather Smith from Flora Couture.  Someone contacted me about some business loan papers that needed signing."

The bespectacled loan officer snapped out of his gape.  "Yes, please sit down."  He gestured to the two cloth seats in front of his desk.  She piled the pleat silk in one seat and eased herself down into the other, ready to stop or shift if the pin stuck her again.  It did not.

For the next half hour she and the loan officer discussed papers, points and percentages.  She found that the skirt threw him far enough askew that she was in complete control of the negotiations, asking the right questions at the right time and getting terms well in her favor.  She felt the murmur eventually return to the rest of the bank, but noticed bank employees and customers alike walking by the outside of the cubicle repeatedly to get a glimpse of her.  She ignored them, focusing on the negotiations.

Eventually the signing process began and progressed to the final, large X at the bottom of the last page.  There was always a large X on the last page.  She signed it, a small sigh of relief under her breath.

"I will have copies placed on file and delivered to you in the morning," the loan manager said as he straightened the loan paperwork for filing.  "I have to ask about your skirt—"

As he said this, she felt her cellular phone buzz in her purse beside her.  She dug for it.  "It's my partner's creation," she said before checking the Caller ID.  Rose.  She flipped it open to answer.  "Yes."

"Done at the bank yet?"

"Just finished."

"And?"

"Later."

"How does it feel?"

Heather understood what she was asking but didn't want to tip her hand in front of the many sets of ears listening.  "Different."

There was a pause.  "Ah.  You have an audience."

"Correct."

"Melissa from CrystalWorx called.  Our stuff is ready but she has to leave tonight for some sort of trade show.  She wants us to pick it up before she leaves."

It was Heather's turn to pause.  "I take it that Missus Magdalena hasn't arrived yet."

"Nope."

"I still need to go to air cargo."

"I'll let you know if the divine miss M arrives.  Mellie will be there until they close at six."

Heather weighed her options.  The shipment had to go out tonight, no question.  But the jewelry was another matter.  Granted the arrangement the two shops had – Flora exhibited their wares at CrystalWorx and vice versa – was mutually beneficial.  On top of that, the Magdalena order was in the neighborhood of thousands of dollars.

"I'll try to make it," she finally said.

"That's my girl," Rose said and hung up.

Heather flipped the phone closed and dropped it into her purse.  She looked up at the suit and tie.  "I have to leave.  It was a pleasure doing business with you."

"And I look forward to it in the future," he said.  "Do you need any help back to your car?"

She gathered up the silk in her arms.  "No thank you."  She left the cubicle and headed for the door at something a little more than a mince.  She could not walk with her usual stride, knees and thighs held too close together to do nothing but slide past each other.  She quickly learned to roll her hips as she stepped, easing the strain on her legs, but she knew it made her rump wiggle inordinately, she could feel it.

The guard took his time to unlock the now shuttered front doors to the bank.  She stepped past him and headed for her SUV, feeling his gaze on her back.  She ignored it, thankful that the driver's side door faced away from the bank.  She repeated the process of tossing the silk onto the passenger seat and hopping up behind the wheel, taking more care than last to ensure she wasn't stuck with the pin again.

Back on the road, she headed for the airport.  As she drove, she could feel warmth radiating from the nylons covering the insides of her legs.  Friction, she told herself.  She also took notice that the pleat silk was now loosely wrapped once completely around the lower half of her body.  It didn't seem to be in the way but it also didn't seem like the pile of train was less because of it either.

Traffic was getting somewhat more brutal as she headed for the airport, slaloming around lost tourists darting for the rental car entrances and road warriors either about to have a passenger plane strapped to their back, or just released from it.  She headed for the air cargo section of the airport, dodging tractor trailers and shuttle busses.  Heather found the parking lot for the airline the shop had an account with, created the last time she had to ship air freight, the previous month.  It was expensive, but well worth it, able to bypass the import time of some fine textiles from weeks to hours.  The green silk she wore might have been on that shipment, she wasn't sure.

She found a small space next to a low fence.  She heard the roaring whine of jet engines beyond a set of blast deflectors positioned on the tarmac just over the fence.  She gingerly slid out of the seat, pulled the silk with her, and closed the well-balanced door.  This time there was no ramp up the front of the warehouse, only a dozen stair steps of concrete.  She made her way to the first step, gripped the steel handrail with her free hand, and cautiously tried to step up with her left foot.  The tightness of the skirt resisted some, but allowed her to make the step.

She then tried to take the next step with her right.  Just as she was planting her foot to pull herself up, the pin at her rump struck again, making her flinch and yelp.  She quickly pulled her foot back and caught the breath she didn't know she lost.  She tried with her left again and made it without being stuck.  Heather slowly and carefully forded the rest of the steps to the top.

Once there, she shifted the silk to her other hand and felt the area of the skirt over where she was being stuck, figuring that Rose would not notice if one pin was removed.  Even if she did, Heather was going to take it out anyway.  She felt nothing but the smooth drape of material.  She reached inside of that to the original foundation.  No protruding pinheads, no thin shafts of steel to be felt, just a hemisphere of silk.  Must be sideways, she thought to herself.

Undaunted, she spotted the front door handle to the warehouse storefront and entered with a tinkle of a doorbell hanging over the entryway.  Inside was the forklift operator version of a waiting room:  couch salvaged from someone's house the decade before, a couple of chrome chairs from a business surplus action, and a wheels-and-cheese calendar turned to two months previous.  Above it all in a far corner was a video camera pointed at the front door and the doctor's office-like counter, complete with sliding opaque plastic window.  Beyond sat two burly men, both in blue overalls with their names sewn over their hearts, one staring at a closed-circuit television monitor.

"Yes ma'am, how can I help you?" the nearer one said, without a monitor in front of him.

"My name is Heather from Flora Couture.  I'm here to drop off a package heading to New York.  I called early this morning."

The speaking clerk looked down into a stacked set of trays.  The other, glanced up, then down, then back up again, sizing her up.  Heather could see he knew of her predicament, likely from the video feed from the camera behind her.  "They told me about that earlier," the first one said, thumbing through papers.

Heather pinned the rolls of silk against the wall under the counter with her hips and leaned against it, freeing up both of her hands.  "I'm shipping on my account.  Last time I had to fill out a few papers before signing off."

"You certainly do."  He pulled out a short sheaf of shipping invoices and blank packing slips, simultaneously checking the status of her shipment on his computer.  "You'll have to fill these out unless you went online earlier and printed your own."

Heather reached for her pen and her phone in her purse.  "We don't have a working printer in the shop."

"Ah," the clerk said.  She accessed her email through her phone to get the ship-to address, then started filling boxes and signing lines.  The pleat silk slowly began to shift and slide as she wrote, forcing her to stop often to readjust.  She could hear voices in the warehouse, moving palettes and boxes.  The second clerk got to his feet at one point and went into the back.

"And here is your copy," the clerk said after she finished the paperwork and handed it to him.  He slid a pink carbon copy back to her.

"Thank you."  She folded it neatly and stuck it in her purse.  "It is outside in my car.  It's not very heavy, but I need help getting it inside."

"Will do."  The clerk leaned forward and toggled a stick microphone.  "Assistance to the front, assistance to the front!" the speakers in the back boomed.

She gathered the excess silk to her chest and toddled to the front door.  The clerk rose to his feet.  "I'll send them out in a – whoa."

Heather turned back.  The clerk stood looking out the portal over the counter, eyes locked on her skirt.

"Yes?" she said to break his stare.

He didn't look up.  "I'll send them out in a second."

"Thank you."  She opened the front door and headed for the stairs, hoping to descend them before the help arrived.  Thanks to gravity, it was faster going, but halfway down she looked up to see five men coming out of the warehouse and watching her try to walk.

She completely disregarded the number of men.  "The package is in the back," she said, then looked at her SUV.  While she was inside filling out forms, a large white delivery truck had parked in the space adjoining her, close, effectively blocking entrance from the side.  "Drat," she said.

The rear hatch, however, was still accessible.  She reached into her purse for her key fob, pressing the buttons to unlock and disarm as well as open the hatch.  As she stepped from the last step to the curb, she saw the hatch rise on its own.  She walked around the front of both her SUV and the delivery truck to make the one last step to the ground.  The pleat silk in her arms threatened to escape, but did not.

She glanced back to see men following her.  "Like I said, this is not very heavy, just bulky.  Please be careful with it."

"Yes ma'am," said the chorus in disunion as it came down the stairs and to the rear of her car.

She stood to the side as rough hands reached in for the package the size of a dinner table top out and to the ground.  The original clerk stuck a mailing sleeve onto the front and slid in a copy of her shipping form.  A sticker practically shouting fragile went beside it.  "We'll take it from here."

For a moment, an awkward nothing happened, the men regarding the woman trapped in her own skirt.  On the other side of the blast deflectors a private aircraft rolled by.  Heather pointedly noticed that no one offered to go find the driver of the van to ask him to move it.

So she improvised.  "I'll be leaving then," she said, throwing the silk she carried into the rear of the SUV.  In one fluid motion she jumped up through the hatch behind it, clearing the bumper and pivoted on her hip and purse, swinging her feet inside.  She ended up in repose, reaching up and out for the hanging strap to close the hatch.

She made eye contact with the clerk.  "I will call my contact in New York and notify them it is on its way, good bye."

"Wow, what are you, a gymnast?" he said.

"Once."  She pulled the hatch closed and immediately hit the appropriate button on the fob in her purse to lock it.  Taking a breath behind tinted windows, she took stock of what she had to do to get to the front seat.  She looped her purse over her neck as she pivoted again with a rustle of silk across the plastic floor mat of the cargo area.  She crawled across the folded third row of seats in the SUV, then wormed over the second.  A second and third pin along the back of her thighs chose to strike as she pulled herself through the gap over the center console.  Trying to avoid honking the horn with her bum again, Heather first climbed partially into the passenger seat and then eased her feet under the steering wheel down to the pedals.  One last push sat her upright in the driver's seat.

She glanced in the rear-view mirror.  She had left a trail; the inside of the SUV now looked like it was upholstered in the same green silk with floral ghost pattern.  The ultimate accessory.

She put her purse down next to her and reached for the ignition keys.  The silk was now wrapped many times around her, twisting away like a cocoon, covering her shoes.  She reached down to uncover them.  Her feet were now firmly bound together and she had no way of loosening the skirt without getting out.  She glanced into the side mirror, which nearly touched the delivery van.  She was still being watched.

Unperturbed, she started the SUV, turned the air conditioner on high for she felt herself getting too warm from her exertions, and uncovered the gear selector to shift into reverse.  The warehouse workers dispersed from behind her, clearing a path.  One, then many, waved her backward, guiding her out with motioning hands and unfulfilled expressions.

She eased the SUV out of the parking space, minding the van, the wall and the men.  She flashed a smile and wave at them as she changed gears to drive and drove away, heading back downtown and CrystalWorx.

She sighed in relief again then texted New York while waiting at a stop light to inform them of the shipment and the tracking number.  As soon as she finished, her phone began to ring in a different ring tone.  She recognized the melody immediately and answered it.  "Hey babe."

"Hiya sweetie," her man's voice responded.

"Still at the office?"

"I'm on the interurban platform now and can see the train coming.  Where are you?"

"Running errands before everything closes.  Rose had me busy earlier."

"How close are you to the station?"

She knew the station was downtown as well, near the jeweler.  "Not very right now, but I can be."

"I can get a ride home with the guys, but they don't smell nearly as nice as you."

She smiled, feeling herself blush.  "I'll make sure I don't give out any cologne next Christmas."

He laughed.  "Good move.  I'll see you in around half an hour then?"

She looked down at herself, debating.  Flora was also close to the station, but not as close.  "I might be a little late, I'll call you, but I'll be there."

"I'm looking forward to it.  I love you."

"I love you too."

She looked at the clock in the dashboard as she hung up.  Twenty to six.  It was going to be close.  Fortunately driving into town and against traffic was faster than coming out.

She called Mellie, asked if she could wait a few minutes.

"Sure, hun, I'll be here," Mellie said with all her usual warmth.

Heather's next call was back to Rose.

"Still have the skirt on?" was the seamstress's first question.  She was still at the shop.

"Of course.  You put a number of pins in it."

"Did I?  I had no idea."

"Is that glib?  You sound glib."

"What?"

"Nevermind.  Did Missus Magdalena make it by yet?"

"She just left.  Our coffers are filled."

"Good, package shipped as well.  I sent a text."

"Great.  Forward that to me too and I'll call the buyer to follow up."

"Sure.  I might be by to get this skirt off before I go get Dave at the station."

"Might?"

Heather paused, unsure how to read that might.  "Do you want me to come by sooner?"

"No, silly girl, I want you to show yourself off to your man!"

"Really?"

"Yes!  And I want all the details after you do.  You going around town like this is great advertising for us, you know."

"Advertising?"  Heather didn't think of herself as a billboard in the skirt, just trapped.

"Yes.  I bet we hear back about this before the week is out, especially after you go meet with Millie.  Tongues wag."  The phone on Rose's end clicked, signifying another call coming in.  "I have to get that.  Have fun!"  The seamstress hung up.

Heather glanced at the clock as she removed her earbud.  Five minutes to six.  The edge of downtown was in sight.  She looked down at the skirt.  Lifting both feet to accelerate and brake was tiring and awkward.  She tried to spread her legs apart, only able to get an inch of space between her heels.  The windings from her afternoon's exertions had slid down some, revealing the base layer around her hips and bunching around her legs.  She was going to have to loosen it some if she was going to take one step out of the SUV.  Still, it certainly looked and felt luxurious.  Rose had outdone herself.

The low sun was casting dark shadows on orange buildings as she pulled up a parking meter in the front of CrystalWorx just after six.  The jeweler was located on the ground floor of an office building, with display windows of mannequins wearing Flora Couture clothes.  Heather could see Mellie inside, helping a late customer.  The driver's side door of the SUV opened out in full view of the front of the store, so Heather was going to have to do what she could before hopping out.  She tried feeding some the wrapped silk as she forced her legs apart.  The silk seemed to lose its slippery properties and didn't move very much, only allowing her a few inches more room.

She kept trying, unaware of a tap at her window until it came.  She jumped.

Mellie smiled back at her, broadly.

Giving up, Heather gathered her purse, the trailing silk from the rear of the SUV and opened the door.

"Wow, look at you!" the jeweler said, impressed.

"Thanks," Heather responded, sliding out.  "I need a little help."

Heather took her elbow and helped her to the curb.  "Wow, that is a definite show-stopper you have there!"

"Rose isn't finished with it yet."  She swung the door closed behind her.

"Ah!  What is this, silk?"  Mellie felt a roll of the material in Heather's arms.

"Yes.  Some of the best."  Heather noticed a few pedestrians on the sidewalk spot her and gawk.

So did Mellie.  "Surely.  Let's get you inside so I can show you what I have."

The jeweler held both airlock-style double doors open for Heather before locking both behind them, flipping around the old-fashioned hanging sign beside the entrance from open to closed.  Heather hard to quickly roll one thigh in front of the other to walk, adding a different rubbing pitch of her nylons to the rustle of the silk.  Mellie couldn't get enough of the skirt.  "So this is a brand new creation?"

"Yes, Rose was putting it together this morning.  I model for her sometimes."

"I see.  So why are you still wearing it now?"

"I had to run out to get a few things done before closing."

Mellie rounded the main counter.  "Like getting this from me, I'm sorry I put you through that."  She pulled out dark wooden display case the size of a safety deposit box.

"Apology not accepted!  It isn't your fault at all!" Heather laughed, laying the pleat silk on the counter next to her.  Rolls and folds spilled across spotless glass.  "I lost track of time, didn't get moving until late."

Mellie laughed with her and opened the box.  Inside was a small selection of wearables for the shop, some upper end costume jewelry to put on the window displays back at the shop, others pricey enough to keep under lock and key, all for sale.  Mellie showed Heather how to work the backings of each one.

"So how high does that skirt go?" Mellie asked.

Heather raised the hem of her blouse.  "It's high-waisted, comes up to the bottom of my rib cage."

"I've got the perfect thing for you."  Mellie headed for the back, leaving Heather to stand and wonder for a few moments.  She heard the jeweler rummaging through her back room, checking drawers.

"Aha!" the cry finally came.  Mellie came back out with something dark and beaded in her hands.  "This is something we made for a belly dancer a few years ago that ordered it but didn't pick it up.  Raise your blouse again, I think it would look smashing on you."

Mellie approached Heather's waist.  Heather looked down as strings of black beads encircled her waist.  From the larger beads hung many smaller strands, leading down over her hips to the tops of her thighs like a short apron, to another horizontal band holding them together.  The beads themselves were glittery black spheres arranged in a small – medium – large – medium – small pattern.

The jeweler fastened it shut with a click at Heather's back.  "Feel them, they are perfectly smooth, nothing to pull at the silk."

Heather reached down and felt the beads.  They had some weight to them.  "Are these black pearls?"

"No, rainbow obsidian.  Volcanic glass.  A pain to cut and polish but beautiful and durable."

Heather shook her hips.  She could feel the beads roll across her sin through the silk and lining of the skirt.  They faintly tapped together solidly.

"Walk some, I'll mind your train," Mellie said, gathering up the pleat silk for her.

Heather took a few hobbled steps across the carpeted floor.  The beads swished and swirled, catching the light and scattering it.  "It's beautiful."

"It's perfect.  I think I'll have another one done for when Rose makes me another one of those skirts for my shop window."

"Another?"

"Yes!  Consider that one on loan for when you wear that skirt out."

"Well thank you!  I'll tell Rose and get her to make you another skirt."

At that moment Heather walked too far away from Mellie and the rest of the pleat silk.  With a step Heather suddenly pulled it taut, tightening the wrapped silk around her.  She froze, keeping her balance.  "When it's finished, of course," Heather said.

Mellie giggled and let out more silk.  "Of course!"

Heather ran her hands through the beads again.  "Is this pattern in the front in the back as well?"

"No, it's different."  Mellie put the silk down on a nearby chair and angled one of the counter mirrors downward.  Heather saw herself and turned.  "There's fewer strands, most right down the middle in the back, see?  Just in case you want to sit down, it collapses in a certain way where it won't feel like you are sitting on marbles."

Heather checked herself out in a mirror for the first time that day.  Rose had made the skirt very well, to hug her curves just right:  slimming the waist, hugging her rump, emphasizing her hips and thighs.  It gave her sex appeal she wasn't aware she had.

"Um, do you want me to cut some of this train off for you?"

Heather considered the offer.  If it would have came an hour previous, she would have responded an emphatic yes.  She was close to the shop, close to the end of the day, close to seeing her man, but she remembered what Rose said.  She had to show this to Dave.  All of it.

"No, that's okay, I'm heading back to the shop anyway."  She looked up at the clock.  "And close to getting Dave at the train station.  I have to leave."

"Your fiancée will like that skirt, I know it," Mellie said, getting the box of jewelry for her and following her out to her SUV.

The jeweler put the box in the back seat.  "I'll call Rose, tell her you have this and to not wait up for you."

Heather blushed and tossed her train into the passenger seat.  "Thank you."  She hopped up behind the wheel.

Mellie closed her door behind her.  "Go get him, girl!"

Heather drove off, heading for the station a few blocks away.  She found her phone in her purse and dialed it.  It immediately went to voice mail.  "You must be in a tunnel.  I'm almost at the station.  I love you."

She pulled into the railway parking lot.  Ridership was up recently, so far up that the rail line had bulldozed a nearby abandoned warehouse and installed a gravel parking lot, dust-abated as per city ordinance.  The city didn't want downtown covered in blowing white and gray dust, bad for business.

Seeking to avoid being blocked in again, she drove into that lot and found a space, far enough away from the station to be private but close enough to see through the passenger window.  She shut off the engine and looked down at herself in the gathering dusk.  Yes, the skirt was tight and definitely cumbersome and unfinished, but she did look great in it.  Like she did in most of Rose's creations, but more so now, in this skirt.  Maybe it was the fact there were no laces to tie, no zippers to catch.  Smooth all the way around, except for the beads.  It took a long time to get into the skirt and it may take a long time for Dave to get her out.

The warmth returned again to the insides of her legs.  This time, though, it wasn't the rubbing of the nylons.

Heather felt that the walking at CrystalWorx had loosened something somewhere on the skirt, she wasn't sure what.  It didn't feel as tight as it did.  She felt around for anything caught, anything loose.

"Ouch!" she found the tip of a pin with her finger, pointy enough to be noticed, not enough to draw blood.

She sucked on her finger for a moment, thinking.  There was no way to tighten up the wrap effect in here without climbing around again, she had to get out and do it.  She levered the door open and slid out, heels crunching softly on the gravel.  She tottered for a moment then regained her balance.  The movement propagated into the beading at her middle, spheres rubbing and clicking away at her front and backside.

They felt like hands to her.  A man's hands.

She pulled the pleat silk out some and placed the pile onto the driver's seat.  The weighty pile was now fluffy enough to take up most of the space in the seat behind the steering wheel.  Heather pulled out a few lengths of the material connected closest to her, and laid them on top.  She slowly walked backwards away from the open SUV, guiding the taut silk to stay off the gravel, and stopped when the pile threatened to fall out of the vehicle, eight feet away.

Guiding the silk around her legs with one hand on the top of the folded silk and the other near the bottom, she slowly spun in the direction of the twist.  She wrapped layer after layer around her, keeping her legs wide enough apart to be able to move and the silk low enough for the beading to still be seen prominently.  Once she neared the car, she rearranged the pile again and confidently backed fifteen feet away, breeze caressing her hair and rustling the silk.

After the next full turn, the breeze betrayed her.  An errant wind kicked up, swirling around a nearby building.  The wind buffeted the silk and pushed against open SUV door.  She lunged for the door.  At that moment, many things happened.

The wind pushed the car door closed, slamming it shut, trapping the silk in the doorjam.

Heather's heels found a loose spot in the gravel, taking her footing away from her.

Caught between lunging and falling, Heather tried to stand up and back, trying to regain balance, but losing it.  She first started to fall backward, but the rigid silk pulled her forward.  She twisted and turned, old gymnastics reflexes kicking in to keep her from falling flat and hard, putting one hand out to transfer energy away from straight down.

All of her movements combined to send her into a horizontal roll toward the SUV in the direction of the silk.  The green fabric quickly traveled up her body as she rolled, covering the beads at her hips, her waist, her chest, her arms.

It took her a moment to chase her dizziness away.  She came to rest beside the SUV, face up, green silk wrapped to her nose.  Only her hair and the top her of her head to her nose was free, as well as the fingertips of one hand.  The other was trapped along her body.

"Mmmph!"  she tried to speak but the silk bound her tightly, still leading up to the closed car door, most of the weight of her upper body on the last wrap of silk around her mouth.  She tried to move but only succeeded in a worm-like wiggle.  Only her fingertips had some degree of freedom.  She was trapped.

She looked down at herself.  She was completely cocooned in yard after yard of green, down to her feet which were covered in a bulbous roll of silk.  Beyond her was empty parking lot and beyond that was a wall.  No one could see her from the street, the station, or the train tracks.  She did not feel as if she should panic.  This was an accident, and a potentially embarrassing one at that, one she knew from which she could extricate herself.

She tried to push herself with her feet but could only move gravel.  Heather tried biting at the silk to move it aside so she could shout.  She felt the fabric slide some away from the bottom of her nose, but not far enough.  She attempted to pivot and roll her shoulders against the twist but that only tightened the fabric around her mouth and drove two pins into her backside.

"MMMPCH!" she mumbled.

She found a position where the pins retracted, and froze there.  The silk crammed her lower hand against her crotch, and beneath her palm were a few of the larger obsidian orbs from the beading.  She tried to move her arm, but only succeeded in grinding the beads into her privates.

She blushed, resisted, then tried it again.  It wasn't much movement, but it was definitely something for her.

As she laid there trying to think of what to try next, she heard the crunch of tires on rock.  She turned her head and could see just underneath the SUV.  A car was driving into the lot, headlights sweeping across the far side of her car.  The car pulled into a space much closer to the station and stopped.  She did not see anyone get out.

Heather debated if she should make noise or try and stay quiet.  Dave was coming, he would rescue her.  Would he see the SUV from the station?  Her vehicle was a late model, fairly ubiquitous, blended in with the crowd.

She tried to move again but only succeeded in more futile struggling.  It was getting dark.  Someone was watching her, maybe from that car, from somewhere else.  Someone would find her, they had to find her, soon –

"Hi there."

She looked up, startled.

Dave dropped his briefcase and rushed to her side, supporting her head.  He opened the door, releasing the tension on the silk, lowering her into his arms.  He pulled down her silken gag.

"Are you ok—" she kissed him hard, repeatedly.  He kissed her right back.

"My hero," she said between kisses.

"What happened?" He helped her up to a sitting position.

"I was trying to tighten up my skirt, and this big wind came and shut the door and I fell."

"Are you alright?  Did you hurt anything?"

"Just my pride.  I'm okay."

As he tried to unwrap her, the rest of the silk in the driver's seat chose that moment to slide off the seat onto both of them.  They locked gazes then started to laugh.

"Let just get out of here," she said.

At first, he tried to stand her up on her feet, but she stopped him, not wanting to grind too much dirt and dust into the silk by standing on it.  "This isn't going to work," she said.  "Carry me."

He paused, agreed, then effortlessly swept her into his arms.  He carried around the other side of the SUV, gently laying her in the passenger seat, piling the pleat silk on the floorboard at her feet and buckling her in.

Dave circled back and slipped in behind the wheel.  "Talk about getting wrapped up in your work!  Do we need to get back to the salon?"

Heather looked over at him.  "Come here."

He leaned close.

She kissed him, hard, passionately, tongue probing, free fingers finding his lapel and keeping him close.

They didn't go back to the salon that night.