Scarf Shop

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Copyright Oggbashan August 2005

This story is based on a story in German 'Tuchladen' and the author has adapted the basic translation to form a new story. The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of those parts of this story that are his original work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

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My name is Peter and I work for a bank. Normally it is a mundane job with little excitement. Until one day when I was given a special task.

A little way from the bank was a small scarf shop, tucked into a side street off the city centre. I used to walk past it twice every lunch hour on the way to and from the small café where I used to eat.

When the shop opened the frontage was newly painted and very fine silk scarves were displayed in the window. Each week, and sometimes more often if something was sold from the window display, the arrangement of scarves was changed. I would always stop, look in the shop window, and admire the setting and the carefully posed mannequin heads that seemed to smile at me invitingly.

When I was younger, it seemed that very elegant ladies wore silk headscarves with an air. I would get a warm feeling inside every time I saw a woman wearing a silk scarf. Recently the fashion seemed to have changed and fewer women wore scarves. I was concerned that the shop's owners might have misjudged the market and opened their business when scarves were no longer as desirable as they used to be. If women didn't wear scarves, who would buy them?

I would be very sad if the shop closed. The two young women who ran it demonstrated the art of scarf wearing with panache. Sometimes I could see them through the shop door as I passed. I was such a familiar sight that they would smile at me and I would smile back. The shop and the two women sometimes featured in my dreams. I would go inside, be met by them, and they would demonstrate their stock of scarves on me as I sat unresistingly on a chair. After those dreams I would have a damp patch in my bed.

The shop's owner was an older woman who was one of our customers. I always looked up when she came into the bank. She too wore a scarf with an elegant air that seemed to hark back to film actresses of the 1950s. I would watch her secretively from my desk at the back of the bank as she deposited the meagre takings or more frequently withdrew money from her shrinking account. It wasn't really my business but I knew exactly how little money the shop took and that it couldn't continue to survive. That knowledge tinged my glances into the shop window. Sooner or later and probably sooner, the shop would have to close when the owner's money ran out.

In front of the shop's window I could imagine meeting an elegantly scarfed woman and becoming her silk slave. Rarely I saw a woman leave wearing one of their exclusive items. Most of the time my fantasies relied on the two women who ran the shop. For them I could imagine doing anything if only...

Last Friday it had been different. I had taken some post to the post office and returned past my favourite scarf shop. Under my umbrella I stood in the gathering darkness in front of the sensuously decorated shop window. It was shortly before closing time and there were very few people around in the street. Through the open door I couldn't see anyone inside.

For the first time ever I dared to take some steps into the shop. In the centre of the sales room was a large display stand on which there were some of their most expensive silk scarves. I went to the stand, drawn to it almost as if it were a magnet. I took one of the scarves in my hand and fascinated, let it slide through my fingers. In my hands the material was beautifully soft and smooth. It seemed the essence of femininity. My thoughts were miles away in a fantasy land of silk scarf wearing women and I did not notice that one of the two shop assistant women had been watching me.

"Can I help you?"

I was suddenly back in reality. What would she think of me? Embarrassed I turned to see one of the young women smiling at me as if she knew my secret attraction. I wondered how long she had been watching me. Was she as aware of me passing the shop daily as I was of her?

"I was just looking," I replied.

"Were you?"

That question seemed to suggest that she doubted that I was a genuine customer. Why? I could afford to buy any of the scarves. I am well paid by the bank.

She seemed to have read my thoughts.

"You're from the bank round the corner, aren't you?"

I nodded.

"Are you checking up on your investment?"

"No..."

I was startled. I hadn't been aware that the bank had invested in the shop.

"Then you are just a customer?"

"I suppose so."

"What is your name?"

"Peter."

"OK, Peter. I'm Anna. I'm one of the two staff of this shop. The other one is Sandra."

She pointed over my shoulder. I turned around. Sandra was standing very close to me. I hadn't heard her coming. Sandra stroked the scarf looped over her shoulders. I watched, fascinated.

"Do you like our silk scarves, Peter?" Anna asked from behind me. I couldn't tear my eyes away from Sandra's fingers seductively caressing her scarf.

"Yes," I replied without thinking.

"But you have only touched one, for a few seconds," Anna said accusingly. "How can you like them if you haven't experienced them?"

"What?" I spluttered.

Anna's high heels clicked across the hard floor by the door. I hadn't noticed that most of the shop floor was covered with thick carpet. I half-turned, still aware of Sandra, and saw Anna shut and lock the shop door, pull down the blind and turn off the shop's main lighting.

"Peter?" Sandra's voice seemed as silky as her scarf. "You haven't experienced our silk scarves, have you?"

"Well..."

"You haven't." Anna's remark was a statement. "Come into our stock room."

She took my hand and pulled me across the shop floor. Sandra held a curtain out of the way as we passed through. The stock room was narow, shelved on both sides and had a full length mirror at the far end. Facing the mirror was an upright chair. The shelves were almost empty except for a few flat boxes and a pile of silk scarves heaped on one shelf.

"Is this all the stock?" I asked.

"Unfortunately, yes," Anna replied. "We want to talk to you about that."

"To me? Why to me?"

"Because you are Peter from the bank."

"Did you know that the women at the bank always wear a silk scarf when they ask you for a favour or some help?" Sandra asked.

"No. I hadn't noticed."

"They do. They know that silk scarves turn you on. They have three scarves that they swap between themselves. They bought them from us."

"Oh."

"Now we want your help. We're wearing silk scarves. You are in a scarf shop. We think you should be receptive to our request if we ask in the right way. Don't you agree, Anna?"

"Yes. But we haven't started the right way yet." Anna said. "Peter, come and sit on the chair."

I sat. Sandra drew a curtain across the mirror.

"We don't need that yet."

I didn't know what she meant. Anna picked up the pile of loose scarves.

"All these have been on display in the window or in the shop at some time. They may have been tried on by our customers or demonstrated by one of us. If you bring them close you can scent the perfume. They need washing and ironing before we can sell them. See for yourself."

Anna put one of the scarves against my face. My nose detected the faint trace of an expensive perfume. Anna held the scarf in place and then slowly moved it over my face. I was getting really excited by the feel of the silk touching me. Anna continued to stroke my face with the scarf as she spoke.

"We know the shop is in trouble but we don't know how badly. Mrs Jones, the owner, won't tell us. We want to know whether we should be looking for other work before the shop shuts leaving us unemployed. What we want to know from you, or from what you can find out at the bank, is how long the Mrs Jones can keep the shop open if no one buys scarves, or doesn't buy enough scarves. Can you tell us?"

I wanted to tell them. The feel of the silk sliding across my face was almost too much for me to bear. My scruples as a bank officer were sliding away as Anna caressed me.

Sandra stood behind me. Her hand rested on my right arm and gradually moved to grasp my wrist. She pulled it backwards until it was behind the chair. Anna pushed the scarf over my mouth and nose and held it there. I didn't resist as Sandra took my left wrist and brought it to meet the right wrist behind my back. I knew that she was winding a silk scarf around my wrists but I was mesmerised by the scarf held against my face. Sandra knotted the scarf and wound again to knot across the folds. She dropped to her knees and fastened my ankles to the chair's legs. Anna had leant forward so that her silk scarf sheathed breasts were pressing the scarf into my face. I sank into their softness.

Sandra stood up. I could just see her peering over Anna's shoulder.

"Well, Peter, are you going to tell us, or do we have to ask more insistently?"

Anna leant back, releasing my head from her cleavage.

"I don't really know..." I started to say.

"What do you know?" Sandra's voice was still seductive but compelling.

"I know that Mrs Jones is drawing from her personal account to pay you two. I don't think she can keep that up for long. She seems very unhappy every time she draws cash."

"Can you find out?" Anna asked, pulling me closer to her scarved cleavage.

"Perhaps but..."

"What buts are there?" Sandra asked.

"Let me think."

"Think? We are trying to get you in a position where you don't think, you react to our scarves and to us." Sandra's laugh had a touch of hysteria in it. I knew that this act was a serious matter to both of them. They had kidnapped me and were seducing me to save their jobs. If what they had done went wrong they would be in real trouble.

I shook my head.

"I want to think, not about Mrs Jones' financial worries, but about you two and this shop..."

"Why?" asked Anna, her cleavage dangerously close.

"Give me a couple of minutes and I might be able to answer. As it is, I can't think because..."

"...because your nose is in Anna's cleavage?" Sandra asked.

I nodded, bringing my face even closer to the distraction.

"OK." Sandra said harshly. "I'll give you those couple of minutes."

Her hand grabbed the scarf from Anna, crumpled it and forced it into my mouth. She held it there with another scarf tied over my mouth and knotted behind my head.

"Now you have those minutes. We'll leave you here to think. You can look as well. Just don't try to run away."

She dragged Anna away and pulled the curtain covering the mirror. As they left the room I could see myself helplessly tied to the chair and gagged with a deep blue silk scarf. I tried to free myself. Sandra's bonds were too efficient. I was their captive. I resigned myself to waiting until they would free me, as they must sooner or later. And I had time to think without distraction except from the sensuous grasp of the scarves holding me tight...

My first thoughts were about Anna and Sandra. They had put themselves in a very awkward position by tying me up. If only they had asked for my advice as a normal conversation they wouldn't have risked so much. Would I have helped? Probably. They were right. If a woman wearing a scarf asked me to do something I was likely to agree. Perhaps I wouldn't be such an easy target at the bank after tonight. Being made captive in a silk scarf shop by two young women wearing silk scarves who had tied and gagged me with silk scarves was a sensory overload that was scrambling my thought processes and threatening to spill out onto my trousers. I forced myself to consider the shop's problems.

The position was acceptable. Although in a side street it was close enough to the town centre to get a reasonable trade for the right product. The rent and rates would reflect the size and location so shouldn't be crippling IF the sales were OK. The sales of scarves weren't OK. Silk scarves were low weight, low volume and high value. The profit on each scarf would be say ten pounds. If twenty scarves were sold a day... That was the crux of the matter. I doubted if they sold twenty scarves a week. They weren't fashionable enough, now, today.

The shop had to sell something else that was fashionable either instead of, or as well as scarves. It had to be something relatively small because the shop wasn't large enough to sell coats or dresses. There was something in the back of my mind, something that wouldn't quite come to the surface, perhaps because although I was trying to think about the business I was still distracted by the scarf filling my mouth, the scarf across my face, the scarves caressing my wrists and ankles in a soft but inescapable grip...

Sandra and Anna came back. Anna removed the gag and eased out the scarf from my mouth.

"I'm sorry," she said. She was almost crying.

"We shouldn't have done this. We are desperate but we shouldn't have tied you up..."

I shook my head as she dropped to her knees to undo my ankles.

"Don't worry about it. I understand how you feel and I have enjoyed some of it. You two knew how to get my attention and how to push the buttons that made me helpless..."

"Would it have worked better if we had stripped naked except for a scarf bra and belt?" Sandra asked harshly. I could tell that she was as worried as Anna, just reacting differently.

"It might," I admitted. "The two of you dressed in nothing but silk scarves would have been irresistible. A scarf as a belt..."

I stopped. That was it. The expression on my face must have been ludicrous. The missing link that had been on the tip of my tongue.

"Belts!" I shouted.

They looked at me.

"Belts." I repeated. They looked blank. I stood up as the last scarf fell away. I put my arms round their shoulders and kissed them on the nearest cheek. I hugged them. They hugged me back.

"What are you talking about?" Sandra asked.

"When you left me I was trying to think about what this shop could sell as well as, or instead of, silk scarves until scarves are fashionable again, if that ever happens."

All that sentence had come out in a rush.

"And?" asked Anna.

"The answer is belts. Good belts, not plastic rubbish. Expensive belts that women would be proud to wear. Belts ARE fashionable at the moment and..."

"I suppose it's my turn to say 'And?"?" said Sandra.

"The bank has a customer, a manufacturer, who is looking for a sideline to keep his workers busy in a lull between two big contracts. He makes belts. Not fashion belts but drive belts for machinery. Yet he COULD make fashion belts from leather with metal fittings. His workers are skilled craftspeople. He could make belts for this shop to sell. The cost would be low, the mark-up high, the product exclusive, and the profit margin enough to pay for you two, to pay off the bank loan, to repay Mrs Jones' personal account and keep this place running for years."

I paused for their reaction. I looked at them perhaps for the first time as attractive young women, not as scarf-wearing young women. Both of them were wearing fashion belts as well as the scarves.

"Belts?" Anna asked.

"Belts sounds good to me," Sandra replied. "Anything that keeps us employed would sound good. How can we repay you, Peter?"

"If it works out, and I'm sure it will, how about introducing me to some more of your stock of scarves?" I asked, daringly.

"I think we could do that. Do you think we could, Anna?"

"I don't see why not. Perhaps we could show him the use of belts as well?"

So that is why I am sitting on that straight chair in the full stock room of the belt and scarf shop. My legs are belted to the chair, my waist is belted to the chair back, my wrists are tied behind my back with a silk scarf, my mouth is stuffed with a silk scarf held in by another silk scarf and then I have a silk scarf tied normally around my head. I am watching Anna doing a striptease with silk scarves while Sandra looks after the shop.

Anna is now my wife. Sandra is my sister-in-law. Mrs Jones is my mother-in-law. I still work for the bank but the women no longer wear silk scarves when they want a favour. They know that I am overloaded with silk scarves at home and in the family shop. Their latest ploy is exposure of cleavage...