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Paityn arrived at the studio early. The slim young woman stepped out of the cab and pulled her hood up and looked up at the building. Zak had contacted her about the job as a way to apologize for their bad breakup the week before. She had almost not taken the call, but now she was glad that she had. She went into the lobby and took the elevator up to the seventh floor, the top level of the building. The doors opened and she stepped out into a broad open space, concrete floors and walls, an industrial ceiling with exposed pipes and conduits and several heavy steel support poles spread about the space. She took a fortifying breath as she stepped out of the elevator and looked around. There was a stage set up to one side of the room and stacks of crates and boxes against the far wall.
Then she saw the metal frame. It was huge, made of polished metal tubes, it gleamed in the lights in the room as a man on a ladder worked with a grinder, sparks flying far. He wore an apron and a face shield, heavy boots and faded, stained jeans, gloves and a long sleeve shirt against the dangers of what he was doing. He seemed to be the only one in the studio aside from her. When he saw her, he waved and nodded, then went back to what he was doing for a minute before he shut off the tool he was using and hung it from the ladder. He lifted the face shield and climbed down, smiling as he turned to her.
"You must be Paityn." He said, taking off a glove and offering her his hand. "I'm Sean."
"Yeah that's me." She said with a slight smile, feeling suddenly nervous for no reason she could place. He was easily a foot taller than her and he had to be twice her mass. Something about men like him had always made her feel small and weak. The fact that he was in his forties, with gray-black stubble around his mouth and salt and pepper hair and a ready smile only added to that and she fought hard not to close in on herself in defense.
"So, Zak tells me that you're willing to be the model for my contraption." He said, gesturing at the framework of metal that he had been working on.
"Well, I guess that depends on what sort of contraption it is." She said somewhat skeptically, looking the pile of metal over rather than look at him and her heart rate slowed immediately.
"It's a suspension frame." He said, moving the ladder so she could get a better look at it and as he explained what was expected of her, her heart rate rose again, but this time for an entirely different reason. When he finished his explanation, she was forced to look at him again.
"So, will any of this be a problem for you?" He asked and she shook her head silently, unable to speak, unable to say what she wanted to say as he held her with his steady gaze. When he turned away from her she felt her will come flooding back and she sighed, looking vacantly at the half-finished frame of metal.
"Well... I don't know what Zak may have told you, but will this be a problem?" She asked, pushing back her hood and he turned her way again, casually, but he still nailed her in place with his eyes as he looked at her close shaven head. She had cut her hair off, leaving just a cap of dark fuzz that was close to her scalp, not more than a quarter inch. He stepped close and looked her over with a nod.
"No, that is ideal actually. Are you willing to keep it that short until after the event?" He asked and she shrugged.
"Whatever you need." She said and he smiled.
He spent an hour taking measurements of her, her weight and height, the length of her limbs and the size of her head. It was completely casual on his part and yet Paityn was as tense as an iron bar the entire time. He had her pose on a pedestal and he sketched her out in several poses and took pictures of her from several different angles. When he was finished she was fighting hard not to tremble as she pulled her hoodie back on and covered her head with the hood.
"Well, I think that's everything." He said with a nod, looking over his notes and then back to her with a warm smile. "I guess I'll see you bright and early on the twelfth." He smiled, offering his hand to shake again and Paityn, feeling small and weak shook his hand and then left, returning to her apartment on trembling legs. As soon as she was inside she went right to her bedroom and laid down on her bed, curled into a ball and tried to calm herself. But as she always did she fell asleep, her hands down between her thighs and her mind a chaotic whirlpool of fantasies and dreams.
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The day of the twelfth arrived and Paityn rode a cab to the studio once again, her heart racing in a mixture of anticipation and dread. She had cut her hair again just this morning, and she felt good about it for the first time. Where before she had pulled her hood up to hide her head, now she walked proud, ignoring the people who slowed to stare at her. She was pretty, that much she knew. After all, she was a model, and there wasn't much call for models that weren't pretty. But the new cut of her hair, which had been to the middle of her back before she had split with Zak, showed off the contours of her face and, she had to admit, took eight or ten years off of her age. She had artfully applied her makeup to enlarge the size of her eyes and she used the reddest lipstick she had on her full lips. As a result she looked exotic as she walked in the doors of the building and rode the elevator up to the top floor again.
Sean was waiting for her, and he looked considerably different than he had before. He was still tall and heavier than her, but now, in just a t-shirt and slacks his physique was clear to her, his arms well defined and his shoulders broad. He clearly worked out and that just added another layer to her fantasies, fantasies she had never shared with anyone, but that a few people had partly guessed and had capitalized on. It had been the root of her relationship problems with Zak. He was tall and strong, with dark eyes and he had quickly learned that she found it hard to say no to anything that he asked of her, so their relationship had turned from professional to personal very quickly. And like all of the others it had ended badly. She had finally had enough abuse and she had done what she had to do to end it, which was start a fight.
And it had ended badly, with police becoming involved and threats of restraining orders, with her having to move and change her phone number as he tried to dominate her once again. But finally she had been split from him irrevocably and she had felt free. She had spent a few weeks on her own, living off of her savings and looking for regular work again. But times had been slow and not many wanted to hire a girl with no hair, so she had started looking for other work. Then Zak had called out of the blue and told her about this particular job, and she had come, skeptical but willing to at least hear this guy out.
And now she was looking at the big metal frame and her heart was racing, her eyes dilated and she was breathing through her mouth as she looked at it. It was a square, and inside of that was a circle with a few loops of hard metal spaced around it. The whole thing had been polished to a bright, silvery sheen and it was completely smooth, as if it were a single piece of metal instead of the smaller sections she had seen on her last visit. She knew what it was for, knew just what Sean wanted her to do, and she was at once anxious and eager. He let her look for a moment and then directed her to a dressing room at the back of the studio. She stripped to her skin there and wrapped in a silky cloth that he provided, like a robe but without sleeves. She had done nude work before, but never something this exposed. She padded out to where he waited and sat in a chair. He fastened padded leather cuffs around each of her ankles and wrists and tested them for comfort then he moved her to the frame, which he had threaded with ropes. It was ingenious, from what she could tell. The entire thing looked like some exotic spiders-web. He fastened hooks to her cuffs and had her stand in the center of the frame before he drew the slack slowly out of the ropes and she lifted her arms and spread her legs a bit, and then she was drawn up off of her feet and suspended in the middle of the frame.
She was a good foot off of the floor and completely immobilized. He tested the ropes and the restraints, making sure she had circulation in her hands and feet, that there would be no damage to her if she remained there for a prolonged period, and then he let her down. So far everything worked exactly as he had planned. Then he let her rest for a while, and he made sure she didn't have much to eat or drink, as she would be restrained for a long while and unable to take washroom breaks. Other models and staff began arriving and she sat back and watched as he got them situated. There was a long buffet table set out with finger foods and an open bar, all of which had to be stocked. Sean and two assistants had set up a sort of tent around the frame and when it was close to the start of his exhibition, Paityn moved inside the tent and relaxed as much as she could while outside the other models were put in place in the various displays that he had designed and built before he finally came to get her ready. As the most strenuous of the displays, she was the last to be situated and she would be the first taken down. He hooked her to the ropes, but before he drew her into position, he got the rest of her outfit ready.