Slave Wife Read Online Free PDF Page A

through its metal loop and slide it into place.
    She took Karen’s hands in hers, helped her to her feet and led her to a mirror. “Now let’s look at you.”
    Karen looked at her skin, which she’d always thought so nice and smooth, bulging over the too-tight edges of the lingerie. Emeline’s perfect slimness floated next to her bulk in her vision’s periphery. Though Emeline made no comment, Karen could feel her disapproval. The girl yearned to protest, “I’m not fat! I’m just healthy! Everyone says so. Everyone says how pretty I am … and I’m a cheerleader! I couldn’t be a cheerleader if I was fat!”
    At last, Emeline raised her slim shoulders and tossed her head in an elegant shrug that Karen knew represented defeat. “Well, let’s find you a dress.” The woman strode to the closet and began sorting through a dozen hanging garments all, even the few patterned outfits, in unobtrusive though lush colours. Again the shrug as she separated one padded hanger. “This will have to do.”
    Karen hesitantly touched the fabric. The insubstantial black wool was as soft as clouds under her fingertips. In an instant, her upset vanished under the dress’ magic spell. Blissfully, eagerly, she looked into Emeline’s face. “I can really put this on?”
    Emeline smiled benevolently down from her heels’ height. “Cherie, it’s for you.” She waved her arm in a ballerina’s gesture. “These are all for you.”
    Karen stepped into the dress and Emeline helped – struggled – with the rear zipper. Karen’s joy dissolved and then disappeared entirely. Her voice was almost inaudible. “Won’t it go up?”
    “Breathe in,” was Emeline’s reply. Karen sucked in her stomach and, at last, the zipper closed. The dress was so tight around her waist and back she was afraid to let her breath out for fear of bursting the zipper. Again she heard Emeline’s sigh but her only comment was, “Now shoes.”
    Karen looked dubiously at the proffered black pumps. They were beautiful but the heels were so high she didn’t know if she could walk in them. She also couldn’t bend to put them on so Emeline had to help. She tottered to the mirror and looked at herself. Despite the dress’ tightness she thought she looked so ladylike.
    She turned to find Emeline but the woman had slipped from the bedroom. Karen started toward the glass doors but stopped when she heard the accented voice. “I’m sorry, Michael. It’s the best I can do in this little time. I think you should eat in the suite tonight.”
    Then Michael’s curt reply. “I’ve already ordered.”
    Karen wanted to shed the beautiful clothes and run. Too late. Emeline opened wide the glass doors, Michael at her side.
    He did not try to hide his dissatisfaction. She surprised herself by being angry, until he smiled warmly at her and she was overwhelmed by the desire to please him. He took her hand and she peered helplessly up at him. “Don’t worry, my dear. By the time Emeline is finished you will be exquisite.”
    “Yes,” she thought, “I want to be exquisite … for him.” She almost didn’t mind his criticisms over dinner.

Chapter Two
     
    The man’s office was a windowless off-white box filled with grey metal, and that was how he liked it. His desk and the dozen steel filing cabinets lining two walls were covered with orderly clusters and piles of project descriptions, schematics and multitudinous manuals randomly weighted by odd configurations of gleaming stainless steel and plastic.
    A thin tap barely penetrated the heavy steel door. “Come in.”
    The woman, one of the facility’s few female engineers, was more than ten years his senior but her lowered head and hunched shoulders were obviously obsequious. With a dry but pleasant smile, he nodded her to one of the two armless straight-backed chairs facing his. Keeping his visage severely neutral he smiled inwardly, enjoying her expression – half supplication, half barely restrained