The Bunnies of the Bay Area

Abstract: Bunny Nathalie finds the Bay Area's Bunnies are proving to be a hard bunch to keep under her control.

In the small hours of the morning, deep below the museum atrium, Darby imitated a Geisha holding her body obediently stock-still in a seiza position as a metal grate dug into her nylon covered knees and ankles. Two staff Goth girls processed her like a victorious hunter's quarry. First, they pulled the yellow Bunny ears off. Under Libby's mysterious control, neither Darby nor her costume fought back. Her costume refused to restore itself. It did not sting her body to punish and grow back a new pair of ears. It did nothing. The costume's magic submitted to being stripped down.

The Goth girls with their solid black eyes, face piercings, latex body suits and platform boots; stood tall, ominous. One girl squatted behind, the latex knees pinching the mute Bunny. She pulled back fast and hard on Darby's hair, arching the neck, exposing the throat, and aiming the hapless face to the ceiling.

In silent isolation from any hope of escape, the Bunny felt her bowtie snap off, the collar fall away, the wrists cufflinks pop, the French cuffs release, and then the suit's zipper open. Darby's costume could have protested and slowed the strip down by quickly growing back the removed accessories. It could have magically removed the rear zipper, leaving only a sewn seam. Such actions would have stopped everything, since the Goths would not dare cut or rip into the satin.

Among costumes, Bunny or Goth, willful damage was heresy.

Any opposition surprisingly fled Darby's suit. She even found her costume accelerating the process, offering in its own way to help. With a jolting sting in the small of her back, she knew her hidden cincher appeased and offered the Goths removable laces threaded through grommets. Normally the costume left Darby stuck in a cincher sewn shut, no grommets, no strings. Escapable laces were almost always absent. At best she could take the outer shell off and sleep in tights protected by a boned under breast corset. Now strings, zigzagging between eyelets, made the Goths job so easy.

Total submission left her body immobilized, unless ordered. Her costume betrayed her safety. Her mentor and mistress, Maria, was nowhere to be seen. Who knew what these Goths had in mind.

"Oh my goddesses!" said Libby, entering the room. "That laser is beyond excellent. It is so much, much, much more powerful than the last lame-o one." She pressed her breasts and her entire pencil-skirted body against a brick wall and stroked her arms over the surface, imitating how she molested the upstairs gallery's Plexiglas display, set aglow by the laser. She breathed against the cold clay and mortar, risking her white silk blouse against the rough stone. She swiped her extended arms up and down from a tall stretch to a wide span, as if trying to make a snow-angel but face down in the white powder. "I could truly see it for the first time through the glass. I could make real contact with it even though the wall prevented my physical caress. For the first time, I could truly hear it talk to me -- so clearly -- so commanding." She kissed the wall, almost licking the frigid brick. "Loved it. Thank you Darby."

Darby imagined the lipstick left behind on the glass upstairs. She wanted the rouge smeared onto her own lips. Shamefully, she still wanted Libby.

The demonic librarian continued, "I pressed myself hard, right against the glass. Just like this. Yes!" She swiped her arms again. She paused to look to her Goth servants. "You may continue. Field dress the silly rabbit." She pushed herself away from the basement wall as she loomed over Darby. Her eyes peered down through her dark rimmed glasses to the captured pathetic creature. "I'm enlightened now. I don't need a scientist anymore. I know exactly what I need to do. Plans have changed. We are going to need something else and you're it – or will be, soon enough. The process won't be pleasant I'm afraid, my sweet little Bunny."

Libby laughed. "It's sad you won't see Maria being altered. There's so much power in her costume. It's tantalizing to touch and control. As for you, well, all Bunnies have a certain zing to their flavor, but Maria is a Nathalie mentored Bunny. Yummy. It's like a fine wine in a vintage labeled bottle – you just want to shove it up your pussy and fuck it before popping the cork. How I'll handle Maria would make you shudder. Of course, it will be a tasteful lovely ceremony. A little cruel for a costume – sure – but you know, making an omelet, cracking eggs – blah, blah, all that nonsense."

Darby spurted a single breath.

The hair-tugging Goth wrenched harder, punishing the Bunny's attempted defiance. "We will proceed as you wish, Mistress."

Both Goth bodies were clad in black shiny latex body suits, including hoods. Only the skin of their faces showed. Metal bolts glistened around their lips and noses. Their full black contact lenses covered the whites of their eyes, making it impossible to see where they were looking. Above their alien horror movie gazes, more metal perforated their brows.

Darby feared how the Goths would probably transform her into one of them -- gruesome, cold creatures, yearning for abuse. She remembered scanning Libby's mind weeks ago and seeing memories showing the Goths dangling from the ceiling, their shoulders impaled on meat hooks. Would she too also start to love the sensation of being suspended? Would she desire to mutilate her own body? But she loved being a sexy glamorous Bunny.

The kneeling Goth gripped tighter and whispered into Darby's ear, "I'm going to have fun doing this to you."

"Bye-bye," said Libby, with her fingers twittling an insincere farewell. "I need my beauty rest before my early morning exercise. Today has been so! So! Exhausting. Oh my! Thanks again for the laser. It was perfect. Tootles!"

The Goths and the captive Bunny all longed for Libby. Their hearts sank as their raven-haired Mistress click-clacked her heels out of the room. When the door closed, the Goths leered back at Bunny Darby as if it were her fault they couldn't follow their idol. The one pulling the hair whispered a dark order, "Use your magic. Let your hair go. Go bald like us. Under our hoods, we have no hair. None. Now, let yours fall out completely."

"Huh?" huffed Darby in disbelief with the only word she could get passed her lips.

She received another sharp jerk.

Darby could feel her costume give in. "No!" shrieked Darby. Feeling a latex hand stroke over her long locks, several strands began dropping to the floor. More fast gloved strokes followed removing more hair. Seconds later, the final latex strokes slipped over a perfectly smooth scalp. Darby knew her hair was no more.

"Why?" asked Darby.

"Shhh. Now the eyelashes and eyebrows too."

Each swipe of a rubber fingertip around the traumatized eyes removed the last bits of hair. The costume ejected every tiny follicle. The magic obeyed. Without her perfectly plucked brows and primed hair, even friends would have to look hard to recognize Darby. Her unique visual identity hadn't just diminished. It disappeared. She had dated a bald guy once. A head of hair proved to be a major visual cue. She once almost turned and kissed the wrong man in a crowded bar. Bald guys did all look alike. She quickly ended the relationship. She preferred women anyway, but these rubbered Goths were golems. She didn't want to be one of them.

The first Goth smirked. "Open your mouth. I need to properly line you up."

Darby's lips parted. A wood yardstick pushed down her throat. Her body gurgled and gagged as the flat rod went deep, hitting her stomach.

"Don't you dare throw up, rabbit."

The Bunny stared up at the florescent lights, so bright and lonely like Seven Eleven's at night, offices with no windows, and all the other many places not home. She thought of love – Meredith – and touching her lover's petite body, stroking her green satin costume, and playing with her light brown hair. They would never be together again.

With the Bunny's back zipper teeth pulled apart, the fingers yanked its tab carelessly under the base of the large covering cottontail protecting the end of the zipper path. Some tail mounting hooks popped and left the fluffy white ball dangling on a thread. Causing a little damage didn't seem to bother the Goths. The weight of the opened costume's spiral metal boning began to pull the bra cups away, exposing Darby's breasts. The Bunny wanted to instinctively hug the satin against her chest, cover herself, but her arms stayed stuck to her sides as instructed.

Decorating the tops of the leg holes, bow knotted yellow strings snugged the costume at the hips. Grubby hands released the strings from their grommets and dropped them to the metal grate. The second Goth ruthlessly clawed and batted the costume down to Darby's lap.

The dressing down continued.

The outer yellow satin flopped forward, laying limp across Darby's dark nyloned thighs. Her yellow Bunny costume had been peeled open like a banana revealing a white cotton inner lining of the shell. The cincher, revealed underneath, not original to outfit of the 1960's clubs, offered laces to the Goths' fingers. With more pulling, the strands went awry in wide wild loops. The jerking tugs loosened the torso hugging tube, expanding it away from Darby's flat athletic midriff and allowing the Goths to crush the boned garment down below the waistline.

The 'Bunny Darby' nametag fell to the floor.

"Don't forget that. All of her has to stay together."

The tag was retrieved. "Darby," read the kneeling Goth in front. "No one's going to know your name now." She jammed the first prize ribbon against the Bunny's crotch. It slid down inside a crevasse between the opened costume and the double-layered pantyhose.

When both layers of pantyhose rolled down, tucked under the collapsed cincher, the violent doffing ceased.

"Keep your arms tight against your body. I don't want a gap anywhere."

The lithe arms pin themselves to Darby sides. The stick shoved down her throat kept her head back, her eyes open to the blinding ceiling lights. She could only guess what was next.

"So little jack rabbit, we're now going to spray you with a composite cement. I envy how fully enclosed you'll become." A bucket banged about. Liquids were mixed. "Instead of water, we use a latex in the blend. It makes it unperceivably flexible but much more durable, so no cracking. While it dries, you're not allowed to move. Don't even breathe. We're going to get a nice even coat over you. Keep your eyes open and hold your breath. Hold your breath forever. Let your costume's magic keep you alive."

The second Goth girl took pity on Darby. "The cement is acidic. It'll sting. Here use my contacts." She squeezed her left eye and popped out a black hemisphere lens. She extracted the right contact too. Both eyes now felt the cool air for the first time in many years. With contact lenses in her gloved hands, her former alien gaze suddenly looked human. She had hazel sympathetic eyes, actually sweat and innocent. Her heart seemed pure -- just not enough to bother with rescuing Darby.

Easing some guilt with a kind offer probably led to a need for alleviating the prisoner's minor discomfort.

Darby's eyes pleaded. Then anger flashed. She didn't want either Goth to feel better for offering anything, especially some superficial sympathy. She looked straight to the steal I-beams above and stayed quiet as rubber fingers fidgeted around her eyes. It took effort to push the plastic in. Plastic covering the entire ball of the eye seemed worse than simply being maced with cement.

"Come on," said the other Goth. "Hurry up already. Let me just paint her. She's going to be in agony anyway. I mean she isn't even aloud to inhale air."

"I just need a second more."

"Let her eyes burn for a few lousy minutes. What's the difference? We have to put her on display before opening. Hurry. Libby will get angry."

Darby felt her eyelid pulled back and the full cover of a black alien contact pushed over the ball. The next lens compressed the other eye. The overhead lights tinted with a sunglass filter. She felt the plastic squeeze. She wanted it removed. She wanted to swirl her eyes about her sockets to get comfortable. The plastic firmness made her body beg for a forceful squint. None happened. She had never worn contacts, let alone encasements.

Her thoughts quickly switched to a wet thick wash starting to cover her bare skin. Her shoulders didn't shudder or move – it took all her will to obey and stay still.

A spraying sound moved side to side, up and down. The clammy wetness covered and ran down her torso in streaks. It sounded like rain on a tarp when it hit the costume, flayed open like a dead fish over her lap.

The scream for needed air flooded all her thoughts. Still, Darby subserviently held her breath, ignoring the hunger to respire. Her muscles ached. Her body silently bawled. Her arms remained dutifully held tight against her body. Her breasts, with cold plump nipples, pointed forward. A bucket and handle clanked overhead. Pouring cement pounded on her costume below her waist. The muddy slosh piled higher entombing her legs and feet. Simultaneously, the spraying continued. Darby sat there like a mannequin, no movement allowed.

The crude costumed creatures mixed more cement.

More spray hit. Grey cement smoothed over the hairless head, finally coating across the open eyes. Her vision fogged, like watching a car wash through a windshield. Then everything went black when her pupils were painted over. She imagined the sting in the eyes without the plastic covers. The burning might have helped distract from the need to breathe. She begged to pass out. The mud slid down the rod protruding from the breathless lips. It hurt when she accidently flexed her throat.

"Stay still. Do not move."

Shocks of short sprays hit the perfect perky breasts and the flat tummy. The arms glued to her sides as it harden. Surely though, it couldn't have dried that fast. Maybe time was passing in a hurry. Maybe that was a blessing.

Darby found no relief. She starved for air. Her costume fought her human limitations and kept her alive and conscious – fully alert and thinking. She begged harder for death, but she had nothing to offer her costume. Normally a promise of sexual deviancy could gain help from a costume, but what could an imprisoned soul possibly barter? What offerings did she have?

Her costume refused to let her pass out. No sexual act offered in trade would ever have sufficed anyway, because the satins and cottons worried that an unconscious human body would not hold the pose desired by their new Mistress Libby. Every thought was wrong. Who cared about a statuesque pose? How did Libby get so much control?

Time lost in agonizing torment slowly continued.

Motorized buffing whirred outside somewhere. Darby's lungs blazed in the darkness. Air! Please! The pain always grew with no lulls or relief. Thoughts failed to find a way to achieve unconsciousness.

How long had it been?

Outside Darby's living hell, the Goths buffed and polished the dried surfaces above the waist. The solid cement pile below remained rough, neglected. Above the waistline, any imperfections covering Darby's exposed body, such as dried drips and streaks, quickly vanished under the spinning buffer wheel. The girls shaped the Bunny into a shiny statue depicting a woman emerging from a rock with a backward arching neck, arms pressed to the sides, and a face aimed up to swallow a yardstick. The stick had kept the mouth aimed just right, until the cement hardened. Once solidified, the girls carefully freed the stick from the cement dried in the mouth. They used tiny chisels to crack the resin behind the teeth, clearing a path to slowly extract the stick from its human sheath. As the last part of the wooden rod pulled free, a puff of dust exhaled from the stone lips.

"Don't you dare breathe inside there," yelled a Goth. "I don't want any cracks. Your almost dry now." She gently tapped a stone human ear and spoke as she pushed filler into the passage to the eardrum. "I know you can still hear me. You probably sense me with your Bunny costume curse." She mixed more filler on a painter's palette. "I'm going to make certain you're all sealed up." She finished plastering over any possible openings in the ears and nose. The mouth she left open. Using a latex finger, the Goth pushed more plaster into Darby's nostrils, leaving a smooth concave round surface shaped like a perfect Michelangelo marble carved nose. She finished with a Dremel tool, sanding the face with a fine grain buff cone.

The motoring vibrated inside. It scrubbed upwards and over the baldhead. It sanded across the round surface of the open eyes.

A far off voice said, "Perfect. Nice and smooth."

Below Darby's waistline, dried crinkled cement buried her costume. Her outfit stayed flopped, dejected, like a used towel draped over her legs. Her Bunny ears, cuffs and cottontail hid between her folded legs, in a cement pile below her rear, between her high-heeled feet. Coated in grey, her yellow high heel stilettos extended like horns out of the rocky mound. Nothing of yellow or human skin showed. She had been permanently joined to a metal grill and posed as if she could spew water like a Roman cherub fountain.

A Goth dusted away the sanded powder, pushing some of the powder between the open lips. She didn't care. "I can't even imagine the pain you must feel in there, not being allowed to breathe. Mmm, so totally encased. I envy you. But, don't worry, it's almost over. We're going to put you into a vacuum chamber now. I need you to use your magic to stay alive. You can't move one bit. So I need you to understand what's about to happen to you. We're going to coat you in aluminum. We used to do this with cursed artifacts to shield their magic forever. We didn't want them to infect spectators. Unfortunately, the evil magic started to burn through the metal. Plating proved useless. We stopped aluminizing and gold electroplating. Instead we use leaded display cases that didn't make direct contact. But you – well -- you're alive. You want to obey. So don't fight it. Don't burn the metal off. Just let yourself be plated. Give in. It's so important to put cursed objects, like yourself, on display. It lets the magic feel sexy even without a host. Voyeurism keeps the enchantment inline."

"I'm envying you so much," said the other Goth. "We've never aluminized a living person before. It'd kill 'em. I wish I could try this myself."

"Bunnies have such power. I want it."

Darby felt shifts in motion as the metal grate lifted. Her fate fell to some primitive tribal ritual, trying to appease a volcanic god. She was a sacrifice being carried on a raised platform to her doom. Her need for oxygen drummed in her mind like wild primitive fanatics dancing to a sacrifice ceremony. Through the polished stone layers, she could still sense beyond her body. She could actually see how she was being placed inside a steal container that looked like a huge 19th century iron furnace with an enormous steal door. The closing hatch banged. Bolts screwed into place.

The Bunny senses struggled through the depravation of oxygen, through the metal walls. Darby could sense two Goths talking.

"Be careful," said the first Goth, as if Darby were a collapsible soufflé about to be baked in an oven.

A wheel cranked and air whistled as a vacuum pump chattered. Darby's costume struggled to fight the sudden drop in air pressure. The expired air inside her body had nowhere to go. It's pressure wanted to vent out and, if needed, rupture the organs, skin and cement shell. The magic held. It didn't let anything break, except Darby's spirit.