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Greg
Helena's last words were cut off by the whirr of the machine as it pulled her inside. Her lovely, pale skin disappeared between the input rollers, and within moments her feet emerged about an inch thick on the other side from between the output rollers. I gently cradled her new, thin form and folded it over and over into a block of flattened flesh about a foot square.
As her face rolled out, her eyes locked onto mine with a glare, and her mouth tried to speak, but with her vocal cords crushed to an inch thick, she could only make gurgle noises.
"Don't be sore, Helena. You brought this on yourself," I said, lifting her folded form from the floor and setting her on the receiving tray of the machine. "You can't just run off and see whomever you want anytime you want."
Her eyes burned flames but that was it. Only her gaze could relay any indication of her anger.
"But don't worry. I'm not done yet."
As I spoke. I adjusted the space between the rollers to a half inch.
"It's better to do this in increments, or else you can get spread out like a pie crust. And I don't want a formless splat of Helena. I want you to be just as lovely as you always are, my love."
Since her face was on top of the fold, I fed her head into the rollers first this time. When I pressed the button, she was fed into the machine again, and when she came out the other side, she had gotten even thinner -- barely a half-inch thick.
"See," I told her as I folded her newly flat chest onto her face. "Still beautiful. Still such a wonderful silhouette."
This time she made no sound at all. Nor did her eyes move any longer. I could tell she still saw and hear everything, but to any observer -- casual or meticulous -- she was merely a very thin cutout of a woman.
"Still warm," I said as I picked her up and set her on the tray again. "Just a few more times, and you'll be right where I want you, sweetheart."
I tightened the distance between the rollers to a quarter of an inch this time and gently placed her deliciously thinned toes against the entryway. "Now you'll be a good girl all the time and stay home with me. No more running off and whoring around with anyone else."
I pressed the button, and the machine pulled her inside, feeding her along the tray until she came out even thinner on the opposite side. As her face disappeared into the wringer, I could have sworn I saw her cry.
After folding her again, I couldn't help but notice how flat she was now. Even folded over into six layers, she was thin enough to fit into a large manilla envelope. I smiled as I wiped away the tear I had noticed before.
"None of that now, my love." I moved her to the tray for the final run through the machine. "No need to cry. You'll be mine forever now."
I adjusted the opening to .05 millimeters, the thickness of a sheet of typical copier paper. "Yes, this should have you perfect now."
I loaded the top of her head into the rollers, then stroked her two-dimensional face, then smiled as I pressed the button.
This time when she emerged from the machine, I let her settle into a clump of flattened, beautiful flesh on the carpet. Then I wheeled the machine into the closet and returned to the pile of Helena massed on the floor.
"So beautiful. So perfect," I said. "And so mine."
I picked her up by her shoulders and when I held her in front of me, her face flopped forward onto her chest. I couldn't help but laugh. Then I carried her to the kitchen table and laid her out flat on it.
"It's late, and I need to run take care of a few things, and I can't just leave you out like this." I shook my head as I spoke. "No. That wouldn't be right. I have to take care of you. You're mine now, and I always take care of my stuff."
I left her there for a moment while I went to the drawers for some tape. When I returned, I taped her toes to a small rod about a half inch in diameter, then started to roll her onto it. First her feet disappeared into the roll, then her knees and thighs, and I lingered for a moment before wrapping her naked midsection.
"As much as I'd love to play now, I can't waste time. There will be plenty time for that later, Helena. Oh yeah, we're going to have so much fun together. Just not right now."
So I continued. When the only part of her not rolled up like paper towels was her face, I stopped. I grabbed the poster tube and showed it to her. "This will be yours, but just for a few days until I can find the rest of the stuff I need to get your new place ready." She said nothing. She made no sound. No. She was perfect.
I rolled her face onto the rod, then ran a long strip of scotch tape around it to hold her in place. When I was satisfied that she wouldn't unroll , I dropped the her and the rod into the poster tube, closed the lid, and put it in the utility closet.
Then I called up Jake, the friend she had been cheating on me with, and told him I meet him at the bar in a few minutes. After all, he would need a buddy to lean on and get plastered with once he got her email that described how she was leaving him and going back to Oklahoma and not to ever bother her again.
Helena
I waited in the dark for so long that time stopped to mean anything to me. In the wrapped-up state that bastard had left me, if felt as it each part of my body was smushed against every other part. The sensations overwhelmed me in a really weird way, and made it hard to focus, like trying to give a speech during the best massage you're ever had.
But the monotonous boredom was the worst.
Sure, Greg and I had played with the magic wringer machine before, and the sex games while I was flat were amazing, but this time he had gone too far.
Or, well, I had gone too far. I knew sleeping with Jake would hurt him, but I couldn't help it. I wanted to. And he knew when we started dating that I was not the monogamous type.
Anyway, this time he had flattened me thinner than he had ever done before. He usually left me about an inch thick, giving me just enough body and muscle to respond with muffled speech and facial expressions. But this time he had taken all that away from me, leaving me totally helpless and totally unable to communicate with him at all.
He had figured out how to get exactly what he wanted.
Me.
All to himself.
His own personal property.
In all our other games involving the wringer, we have spent the bulk of our time together, and even though he occasionally teased me by leaving me in a tube or folded away in a drawer, or even filed in a folder in his desk drawer, he never left me there for long. A few hours at the most.
But then he'd reward me for my patience with mind-blowing sex. He'd rub me all over his body like a towel, and even pry my compressed labia apart (no small task in my flattened state) and fold me onto his cock and masturbate into me as if I had been just any old sock laying around on his floor.
But not this time. There was no attention. No sex. No shared sense of adventure. Just anger and getting even with me for fucking Jake.
He just left me alone to stew helplessly.
But my time in the darkness now was the kind of isolation that could drive a person insane. It was the kind of treatment I'd seen in movies where one person is trying to break the will of another in order to brainwash them.
I must have really, really pissed him off this time.
The bastard had not only left me sightless in my tube, but also because of being so far back into the closet, presumably behind the coats and the vacuum and winter boots, my world was also one without sound.
I was trapped away with only taste, touch, and smell to help me cope, and wrapped up in a cardboard tube, those weren't doing me any favors at the moment.
There were a few times I was able to hear the closet door open, and I got my hopes up that maybe Greg was finally getting me out and letting me go, or at the very least giving me something more interesting to do -- or to be done to me.
But no. Each time I heard the door close, and there wasn't a word spoken to me. I really had hurt him this time, and he was apparently determined to take out every ounce of his anger and pain on me. And until he was ready, I guess I'd remain packed away and forgotten in the closet.
Greg
After two weeks, even Jake had stopped talking about Helena. He had passed from grief to anger and then to acceptance, and after a few nights of too much beer and a few easy women, all the way to the who gives a fuck stage -- all of which I was happy to relate to Helena on the day I finally removed her from the tube.
"Hey, sweetie. I missed you too," I told her as I carefully unfastened the tape and unrolled her onto the table. Then I proceeded to fill her in on Jake's new outlook on his life without a "bitch like her" and left her alone on the table to let the words sink in while I fixed a cup of coffee.
"So, like I said two weeks ago, it's just you and me, Helena. No more Jake, well, not for you. No more anybody. I've done what I should have months ago and taken all that away from you. I'm sorry but you just couldn't be trusted to act like a decent girlfriend if you were free to run off and screw around with every guy who bought you a drink."
I watched her for any hint of expression or some indication she was reacting to my hurtful words, but she simply lay on the table. Perhaps there was a glint of a wet glimmer in the corner of her eyes but I couldn't really be sure of that even.
"Good girl," I said. "It's better to just accept it. From now on, you're mine, my special, sexy poster girl."
Still no reaction.
"Yep," I said. "A really, really good girl."
I sat at the table with the coffee, and I rested my hand on her pale, thin skin. In spite of her resemblance to paper, she wasn't cold to the touch. No. She was as warm as any other human being, as warm as any three dimensional person.
"I bet you'd make one hell of a blanket," I said, stroking her thigh with my finger in small circles. "So warm."
The phone rang, and it startled me so bad I knocked over the coffee and it coated her, blemishing her perfect skin with deep, brown puddles. "Shit!" I cried, and I got up to grab the phone.
"Tony?" It was Madeline, Helena's partner in crime and casual sex.
"Yeah," I grumbled. "What?"
"I haven't heard from her in two weeks now. I don't suppose you have."
"No," I said honestly. I hadn't heard a goddamn thing after all. Seen her? Sure? Heard from her? Nope. "I'm sorry." That part was a lie.
"I'm so worried about her. What if something happened to her? What if she's in a hospital somewhere like a Jane Doe? Or worse... What if she's...?"
"I'm sure she's fine. She was done with us. That's all. A bitch like that, you never know what she's fuckin' thinking. Just plain selfish if you ask me. I gave that bitch everything, and then she can just up and leave like it never fuckin' mattered."
As I spoke, I watched the coffee soak into her, and I chuckled.
I listened to Madeline was a few more minutes, then excused myself and returned to the table. I leaned over and licked Helena's belly. It tasted like coffee. That gave me an idea.
I lifted her left from the table, wrung her into a roll, then sucked coffee from her like sucking water out of a wet rag. I sucked her legs, her feet, her belly and breasts, her face and her arms, until she was a wrinkled mess of skin and coffee stains. Then I wadded her up and used her to wipe up the rest of the coffee on the table and enjoyed sucking the liquid from her skin all over again. When I was done, there coffee was gone from the table, and Helena was little more than a used up wash rag crumpled in a pile on the faux wood tabletop.
"Well, I can only guess about the blanket, but I can say without reservation that you do make one hell of a kitchen towel." I laughed heartily. I wanted to see her turn red from embarrassment, but even if she had, I couldn't have noticed it thanks to the coffee color her pitiful little body had taken on. "I wonder if you'll stain if I left you like that," I wondered aloud. "Not that I'd ever do that. I love you to much. Sure. It's one thing to punish you and tease you a little, but you're my girl, and I promised to take care of you, not to destroy you. I do lover you, after all, Hel."
I lifted her from the table and she hung heavier than before, her lithe, curvy form weighted down by the drying coffee that stretched her and wrinkled her at the same time.
"But I do wonder just how to get you clean."
She hung limply in my grasp as I carried her to the sink. I laid her beside it and ran it full of water and dish soap.
"Since you're not technically cloth, but still skin. I guess I just need to wash you with some soap and water."
I noticed the dark stains on her ass where it was on top of the heap of wash-rag woman. "On the other hand, coffee can make one hell of a stain, so I wonder if I should run you through the washer and dryer like a cleaning rag or a towel. Maybe I should put in a little bleach too to be sure to get the stain out."
I turned her over so her eyes faced me, and I walked into the laundry room for the bleach. With a little more wickedness in my tone than I intended, I showed her the bottle and said, "Just a little for good measure, don't you think? It can't really hurt you since you're magically protected in your flattened state. At least from rips and tears and shit like that. But I do wonder if using this --" I motioned toward the bottle. "Would that just bleach you out?"
It was an almost lie, and she knew it. I could do all kinds of things to her that would hurt, even kill, her under any other circumstances, but as long as she was flattened by the wringer, anything I could do was easily fixed by the magic of the machine. I could tear deep gashes into her, cut her into pieces, even have her sewn into a shirt for me if I wanted to, but ultimately one trip back through the wringer would bring her back to normal unharmed.
If... I ever decided to run her back through the wringer. And certainly not any time soon.
I had plans for that girl. If I ever did restore her, she certainly know better than to cheat again.
I poured a little bleach into the cap right in front of her.
"Hmmm... I wonder what you'd look like if I bleached you? I bet you'd end up just being a white silhouette. No face. No eyes. No breasts. I bet even that beautiful pussy of yours would just disappear. I might have to have somebody repaint you from one of your pictures. Or I could run you through the drafting printer and just use one of your photos to print your feature back onto you."
I studied her for an reaction. There was none obviously, but it was still fun to tease her. Not that she had any idea I wasn't serious. After all, I had flattened her and used her as a kitchen towel. To her confused and terrified mind, what else might I be capable of?
I laughed, then poured the bleach back into the bottle. "You know I'd never do anything to hurt you, Helena. Even after how bad you hurt me. But let that be a lesson to you. I could. I really could if I wanted to. There are so many things I could do to you now to get you back and make your regret all that times you treated me like shit. And if I ever change my mind, then you'd better just watch out. Do you understand?"
I stopped, then smiled.
"But enough of that. I'm sure you've learned your lesson, little wash-rag girl. Now let's get you cleaned up."
I lifted her and placed her in the soapy water and scrubbed her like a piece of cloth until the water had taken on the coffee color, then I drained the sink and washed her again until I was certain she was pristine again in all her naked, pale beauty.
"See. Much better," I said, then carried her to the bathroom and draped her over the shower curtain. "Now you just hang here and dry out. Then I'll come back for you later, and we can play some more. Okay, sweetheart?"
As usual, she said nothing, so I left her hanging in the bathroom and drove down to the bar to hang out with Jake for trivia night.
Helena
After so long in the dark silence, just hearing Greg's voice was a welcome relief. He'd been talking for several minutes before I even acknowledged that I wasn't imagining it, still out of my mind from the delirium of being trapped in my own thoughts.
I didn't fucking care that he had ruined my life or that he was keeping like a piece of property. I just enjoyed being talked to again, being treated like I existed.
I have to admit he scared the shit out of me with the bleach. In the past we had put the magical protection to the test and cut me in half. He wore me like a costume that day, but only for a few minutes and then ran me back through the wringer and just like the instructions had said, I was whole again and not hurt at all. So we immediately did it again and he used me as pajamas for the weekend once he knew I was safe.
But he wasn't angry then, and he didn't want to punish me. This time, though, I wasn't so sure. He might just bleach me until all traces of my identity were gone and then leave me lying around or folded up and put away or filed away or even dropped in the trash and taken to the dump. This was new territory, and it terrified me.
When he washed me, I have to admit that felt good. The warmth of his hands on my compressed flesh sent tingles up my flattened spine. Even when he had wrung the coffee out of me and sucked me dry, I couldn't help but feel the beginning of an orgasm. Unfortunately, it wasn't allowed to happen, and he left me hanging, unsatisfied.
In my current state, I was dependent on him for so much. Hell, for everything except my existence, really. The bastard. And I was willing to bet he knew me well enough to know that even through his anger and my worry that I might have pushed him too far this time, even through all of that he surely knew me well enough to know how my helpfulness was getting me off. The ultimate form of bondage I had called it once after being restored. No rope or leather binder could ever trap me as fully being flat and helpless.
The son of a bitch surely knew that his revenge game was working on both my terror and my submissiveness. By treating me like mere property, wasting me on slopping up coffee, threatening to bleach me, and then washing me like a common washcloth, he was amping both sensations up to levels I hadn't been able to experience with him before. There was always the possibility this time that my treatment was for real, was permanent. And damn if that didn't raise the stakes in ways that made me wish I had a free hand to finger myself to orgasm.
He had to know that. That had to be part of his plan. Right? That's why he was playing it up so much.
I hung on the shower rod, damp and heavier than my flimsy form should have been. If I had been mere cloth, wringing me out would have enough, but in spite of my flattened dimensions, I was still flesh, and any water left on me beaded down my arms and legs and dripped into the tub below. I was thin enough to soak in liquids, but not so porous that I was as effective as a real rag. Not a great rag, but not a fully functional woman either.
Still, I was sure Greg would find some good use for me when he returned.
The room had grown dark when I heard the air conditioner click on. In minutes my flimsy body was freezing. Damp and cold was not a good combination. Damp, cold, and helpless was much worse.
I waited for hours for him to return, and soon realized I might be in for a long , cold night alone. There was no guarantee he would even pay me any attention when he got home. Hell, he might just pass out drunk on the couch or the bed and never even notice me.
As I waited, I let my thoughts wander to the last time I had cheated. He had been angry, but had forgiven me. I agreed to let him work out his anger on me and I let him load me into the wringer. Of course I would have entered the machine even without an excuse. But the thought of his anger getting the best of me and really letting me have the brunt of his sadistic, vengeful impulses had me wetter than I remembered ever being before.
After flattening me, he did something then that surprised me. Instead of stretching me or cutting me or doing anything to hurt me and get me back, he just dropped me in the bedroom floor. Then he left me there overnight.
The next morning he piled his sleeping shorts and t-shirt on top of me. When he got home his work clothes were added to the pile. After his workout, his sweats and tank top joined the pile. At the bottom, I was covered and blind. Everything smelled awful from his skin oils and sweat. But he didn't care. I just stayed there until the following evening when he grabbed the whole pile and dropped us all in the washing machine.
I was soaked and swished and stretched and pull for a full cycle, and soon I was entangled with the leg of either his sweats or jeans. Around and around the center pole we went until we finally stopped and the tub filled with water again. After another full soak, I was dragged along with the jeans I had attached to until the spinning finally stopped and the water drained. The washer made a grumpy sound, and then I waited for another hour or so until Greg opened the lip and dumped me and my wet companions into the dryer.
He said nothing, only taking the time to disentangle us and toss us in as single garments.
His silence thrilled me. I could never let him know what a sick pervert I really was because it would most likely freak him out. But I could always count on his temper and his jealous streak to reward me with just the right motivation. Sure I was a bitch. But a girl had to be a bitch sometimes to get what she really needed deep down inside her.
I don't know if the dryer was on the highest setting but it burned against my skin like crazy, and even though I knew I wouldn't be hurt ultimately, I did feel every bit of the discomfort of hitting the hot metal walls as I was rolled over and over.
"God, you're bright pink all over," he said as he pulled me out with the other clothes. "That must have been hot."
I mumbled, still thick enough to muster a little movement on my own, but not much. "Fuck. Wow. That must have hurt."
He dropped me into the clothes basket.
"Serves you right, Helena," he said then covered with the rest of the clothes as he emptied the dryer.
He turned on the TV and I listened as I waited my turn to be folded. Eventually, he pulled me out of the plastic basket, held me by my shoulders, the led my head flop onto my back, facing behind me. He folded me in half long ways, touching shoulder to shoulder and folding my face in half inside the fold. Then he folded me in half at my waist, then again and I was laid onto a stack of t-shirts.
He reloaded us all into the basket again and carried us upstairs. I was put away in the dresser with the t-shirts and left there for a day or two when he finally decided he could forgive me, and then he got me out, masturbated all over me, then cleaned me in the sink and let me drip dry on the shower rod until the morning.
Only then he had run me back through the wringer and restored me after sunrise before he left for work, and he made me promise never to cheat on him again.
This time though I didn't expect any such kindness. I had lied. And I had cheated with Jake. I wondered what kind of tortures he might be planning for me, and though I knew I should have been regretting my cheating, I couldn't help but hope he took a long time before he could forgive me again.
The night grew darker, and so did my thoughts. I fell asleep to the memories of washing and drying and being put away as just another garment he owned.
Greg
When I got home after midnight, she was still draped over the shower rod like a towel, but she was dry. I took her down and carried her to the kitchen, then tacked her up on the pantry door so she could see what I was doing.
I showed her a poster tube about three feet wide.
I picked this up from the P.O. box on the way home. I ordered it when I started making my plans to flatten you. You're gonna love it."
I opened the tube and pulled out a roll of paper. When I unrolled it onto the kitchen table, I lifted it and showed it to her. A beach scene. A long stretch of sand with the ocean just off to the right. A pier in the background and some gulls hanging frozen in the air.
"Pretty, isn't it?" I asked. "It's for you."
I really wished in that moment that she could change her expressions in her frozen form, but when a plan like mine was at stake, I'd have to take what I could get. I'd just have to imagine her shock and fear and regret instead.
"Hang on. Let me get the rest of the surprise and then maybe you can figure it out."
I left and went upstairs. When I can back I was carrying a wooden frame three wide by seven feet high.
"See? A perfect fit. Getting it yet, Helena? I hope not even you could be so stupid as to not figure it out by now."
I opened the back of the frame and dabbed a bit of glue in the corners and randomly through the middle, then pressed the beach scene onto the backing board and smoothed it in place. Then I stood it up to let the glue dry.
"You're turn," I said unpinning her from the door and bringing her to the table. "You're going to be the sexiest art project ever, and I can't wait to put you up in the living room for everyone to see."
I gazed at her flat nakedness as I smoothed her onto the table. I didn't want any wrinkles to ruin this experience for either of us.
"I'd love to hang you up stark naked, but then I couldn't show you off to everybody. So, I figure I'll cover you up just enough to make it look like an art project, and then all your dirty bits will be covered and I can let everyone see you, even my niece and nephew when they come over to visit. And Jake too when he's over for beer and a movie."
As I spoke I placed a piece of pink construction paper over her flattened pussy and a smaller strip over each of her nipples so that the areolas were completely covered. Then I traced a triangle on each piece of paper, two large enough for her breasts and one that would resemble a string bikini bottom for her lower half.
"Perfect," I said as I cut out the pieces. I dabbed a drop of craft glue on the corner of each just to hold it in place until I was finished. I pressed the triangles in place, and Helena soon looked like a layered art project of a sexy woman wearing a bikini. "Getting there," I said.
To complete the effect, I glued a thin, pink ribbon from under the edge of the bottom triangle to the top of her waist, then did the same to the other side. Next I added the "strings" to the makeshift bikini top as well.
"Better than I expected," I said. "Damn if you don't look perfect there. Just another day at the beach, sweetheart."
I checked the backing board and found the beach scene secure against it. I placed it on the table beside Helena.
"Ready to go to the beach, Hel?" I asked. God, I wished she could answer and beg me to stop. Just the thought made me more than a little stiff.
I checked the clock. 1:30 AM. Late, but still plenty of time to finish the project.
I carefully slid the backing board beneath Helena and positioned her on the oversized photo so that it looked as natural as it could considering her flattened pose. In the end, she looked like a cardboard cutout standing on an empty beach, but then, that was exactly the image I was going for. After scooting her a little left, the left again, then a smidge back to the right -- and then down about a half inch, she was perfect. I pressed the glass on top of her and then placed the frame over that, then carefully flipped the whole then over to screw it in place on the back. I left her facedown on the kitchen table for about fifteen minutes and went to get a beer, then sat down and drank it while I made her wait for me to flip her back over. If only I could know what she was thinking. I'd get about anything to hear her beg me to change her back and to forgive her and how she'd never do it again. Or just to hear her tell me I was a bastard and demand that I let her go. Either way was fine with me. I just wanted to see the defeat in her eyes when I told her no, and when she ultimately accepted that she was mine to do with as I pleased for as long as I pleased and that any future she might have as a human woman was completely up to my whims.
I was enjoying my thoughts so much that I got a second beer and made her wait that much longer. After the second one, though, I threw away both bottles and came back to the table. I lifted the frame and stood it up in front of me.
"I hope you can hear me okay under that glass. You look amazing. You'll have to take my word for it though for now."
I carried her to the living room and leaned her against the wall next to the fireplace. "You're getting the position of honor, Helena, right on display in the best spot because that's what you deserve."
I grinned at her, hoping she would get my double meaning, one sincere and one vengeful.
I left her for a moment to get my six-foot ladder and a hammer and nail. While she waited, I pounded the nail into the stud so she wouldn't fall. I climbed down and grabbed her, then walked her back up the ladder.
"Okay, here we go. Welcome to your new home, Hel."
I hooked the wire twists over the nail, then used the level built into the base of the hammer to make sure she was straight. Then I stepped down and surveyed the job.
"Fucking amazing," I said and left to return the tools and the ladder.
When I returned, I picked up my cell phone and snapped a photo of the room, but not centered on her. It was important that I not make her the center of attention... yet. Just another decoration in the room. A thing. A mere thing. Property. My property. The photo didn't even show her flat and fully, but more at an angle off to the side. An afterthought.
"I know you're dying to see what you look like. You always were vain like that. So here," I said and lifted my phone to show her the photo, not sure how well she could see it from her high position above the mantle.
"Looks great, right? You really set off the color of the walls. You're gaudy and way too big for the space, but I think it works. Definitely a conversation piece, especially when folks don't see you for a while and I have to explain that you left me and I'm only keeping this tacky piece of kitsch art because I still love you so much."
I laughed.
"Anyway, you'll be right here in front of them the whole time, but they'll never suspect that it's you up there hanging on the wall."
I lowered the phone.
"I'll take more photos later, and I know that one doesn't show all of you, but really, it's not about you, is it? Art is about enhancing the room, not about making the art happy. Who the fuck cares if the art likes how it looks? I own the art, and I get to say how it gets used and where it gets put. You're lucky I even cared enough to let you see how you look."
I shut off the phone and put it back on the charger.
"Anyway, time for bed. Good night, Helena."
I turned off the light, leaving her in the dark to ponder her fate.
Helena
If I expected my new home on the wall to be short-lived and replaced by a series of fresh hells to put me through, I was sorely disappointed. Instead of leaving me up for a few days to gawk at and tease and threaten, Greg simply ignored me. He saw me. That was true enough. He even took time to study me in my frame and examine the work he'd done to present me in beach attire, but he never treated me as anything more than an object to be looked at. Even the admiration in his eyes faded after a few days, and when he looked at me, his expression remained flat, almost as if he was looking through me, something that had become as regular as just a wall, nothing special.
The only time he lit up and spoke of me with any excitement was when Jake was over to watch sports. Jake's interest in the unique piece of art triggered Greg's excitement at having gotten his revenge, and they would talk about what I must be doing in Oklahoma and how I'd never find a guy as good as either of them, and how they were god damn lucky I was out of their lives for good. That's the only time he would give me a knowing glance that put me in my place and reminded me I was his property to exploit or to ignore.
There were a few parties with friends, and I was always a conversation piece. The guys always wondered aloud if I was naked under the bikini, and the girls always commented about how lifelike I looked.
The days had become weeks, and eventually I was ignored during the parties or when Jake was over drinking. Weeks turned into months, and I remained on the wall while Greg started to date again. He brought girls home, one after the other, never going out with the same girl more than a few times, and they would make out in front of her as she watched from her frame.
After a few months, he finally had a girl spend the night, and she asked about me, standing at the mantle and staring up at me.
"You know," she said. "You're going to have to finally get rid of this piece of shit."
"Why's that?"
"Because if we start to get serious, for one thing, I don't want you to have art of your ex-girlfriend in your living room. And for another thing, I'll replace it with a painting of me, silly."
He looked up at me and said, "Yeah, I suppose you're right. I guess that stupid thing has served it's purpose. I probably don't need it anymore."
But I never saw that girl again, and he never explained to me why they had broken up. One day, after what had to be months later, I came down off the wall. This is it, I thought. The long punishment, the silent treatment is over, and I'm either going to be punished in some new and exciting way, or I'm going to be restored. Either way, the boredom would be over.
Greg said nothing as she climbed onto the ladder and took me from my spot on the wall. He rested my frame against the wall and put the ladder back in the garage. Then, instead of unframing me and taking me out to be used or put right again, he took me out to the garage and put me, frame and all in a tall cardboard box along with some of his framed posters from college and a few fine art copies he had been given as gifts throughout the years.
"I don't need you anymore, Helena," he said. "I'm over it now."
No! Fuck no! I screamed inside. You can't let it end like this! You have to change me back. You have to either abuse me or let me go. You don't get to just pack me up like some... some...
Shit.
That's exactly what he could do. Because that was all I had become. Just some piece of art, property to be boxed up and stored. He was serious. Our time together was done. It was over. He no longer wanted or needed to keep punishing me, at least not actively. The best revenge he could get would be to just leave me alone where no one would see me, where no one would miss me, where no one would know or care about the living, flattened girl trapped under glass in the wooden frame.
His payback would be complete. And I would simply be... gone.
Not dead. Not even hurt in any physical way. Just gone. Out of sight and out of mind. He placed me between a poster of a mermaid and a print of The Birth of Venus. My chest and head stood out above them, so I had a view of him peering into the box.
Please, I begged him mentally though I knew he could neither hear me nor sense my pleading. I was sure, however, that he knew exactly what I was feeling though, and that he was enjoying the feelling of simply discarding me the same way I had discarded him when I slept with Jake.
"The good news, Helena..." I almost found hope at the mention of my name after so long having it denied to me. "...is that you're going to be young and beautiful forever. You're going to live forever thanks to the magic of the wringer."
But I'll be all alone, I thought. So alone.
"I almost envy you. So beautiful. But such a bitch ultimately. A two timing bitch who I thought really mattered to me, but looking at you hanging up on the wall for all these months, I realized something. I don't really care anymore. I don't want you. I don't need you. And I sure as hell don't want to get off on your sick, pervy games of me subduing you or helping you get your sexual urges fulfilled each time I'm mean to you. The best way to show you I've moved on and ironically the best way to really and truly hurt you is simply to get rid of you."
He put a few other frames, some filled with posters and some empty, in the box with me.
"You remember my storage unit on Cosmo Street, don't you? Well, I thought about taking you there. I mean, I haven't been out there in years, right after we started dating, and nobody would ever come to visit you. But then I wondered about other things to do. I thought about just keeping you in the attic, but I couldn't have you that close. No, you'd always wonder when I was coming upstairs to either hang you up again or change you back to normal. And that was too much hope to give you. No. I needed to really leave you knowing it was over between us and that you've never see me again."
He smiled into the box, perhaps the last smile he'd ever show me.
"So I figured the best thing was just to end it with a clean break. So I'm donating you to the charity shop."
What?!
"I figure you'll either get sold to someone and become their conversation piece even though they want know you're really alive in that frame. Or maybe one of the workers will take you home and keep you for himself. But what I most likely thing will happen is that you just so damn kitschy and weird for artwork you'll most likely be thrown out and end up in a landfill, gradually covered under layer after layer of trash, completely forgotten. Either way, it doesn't matter to me because once I hand them the box, it's not my concern anymore."
He closed the lid, and I heard him tape it shut. Then he rapped on the side of the box. "Goodbye, Helena. Good luck. You're gonna need it."
Greg
That poor girl must have been terrified as I loaded her box into my car and drove her around town. Instead of donating her box to the local charity shop though as I had threatened, I instead took her down to the basement and stacked her with some other boxes from before the move. Then I left her there for three days.
I was sure she was losing her fucking mind wondering when the box might be opened and she might be priced and placed out on display and then sold to some stranger.
And it served her right.
I only only partially lied to her. I had gotten tired of seeing her on display, a constant reminder that I needed to up my game and really make her understand how much she had hurt me and teach her never, ever, ever to do that shit again or I could really follow through and have her sold or throw own for real.
Maybe she'd really learn her lesson this time.
I could only hope.
I drank a beer and asked Jake to pass me the remote.
"So," he said. "Are you excited that Helena is coming back next week? To get a call from her just out of the blue like that.""
I took a sip. "I really can't wait to see her again. I guess she just mainly needed some time on her own, you know, the freedom to think things over and really how good we had it together."
"Yeah. I guess so."
"I hope she's grown up a lot from her time away. I really think things will be different this time. Besides, if she finds out she isn't happy again after all, she's always free to take off again. Who knows where she might end up?"
Who knew? I fucking knew. And I had a feeling she just might straighten up this time. Besides, if she didn't, I'd still have an empty frame ready and waiting for her to call home and a storage unit for her to hang out in until she did finally learn to behave.
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