Click and Collect: Self Storage

[Recap: Tom and Hayley run an unconventional extra service for select customers of the Home and Garden store they work for. They can choose to be delivered, made into furniture, turned into appliances, whatever they request. After all, the customer is always right....]

I woke with a start, senses reeling, unsure of where I was.

"Tom."

I blinked rapidly, focusing on a figure in the gloom.

"Uh, who...?"

"Tom, it's me, it's Hayley."

I turned, feeling the stiffness in my body as I shifted on the mattress. I felt a hand on my shoulder, nudging me again.

"What?"

"You were fast asleep," Hayley said, with a subtle edge of amusement in her soft voice, "You were snoring."

I grunted, sitting up and letting the sleeping bag fall down to my waist.

"Huh. Yeah. Well, you try this, see how well you sleep," I groaned, stretching. "Fuck, what time is it?"

"Your alarm didn't go off. It's seven already."

"Oh crap."

I could focus on Hayley's face now, framed by a mane of long auburn hair, kneeling next to my mattress. She was dressed in the Harbinger's store uniform, her other hand bunched around a paper bag.

"Don't worry, it's all under control. Here," she said, holding the bag out.

I took it and unfolded the top to see a ham and cheese croissant.

"Still warm," she smiled at me, indicating the cup next to her on the floor, "And coffee."

I rubbed the back of my head, suddenly conscious that I was half naked in the office. Hayley's eyes shifted down my body, an expression of wry amusement on her face.

"Thanks," I mumbled as she got up.

"Not a problem. Least I could do. You get the night shift, and I sort out the breakfasts. Talking of which...."

Hayley was standing over me now, expectantly. From this angle, my eyes were level with her knees, clad in dark mesh beneath the Harbingers Home and Garden company-issue grey skirt. As I watched, she kicked off her flat-soled shoes and walked over to the corner of the office to slip into four-inch black, patent leather stilettos. She turned back to me, waiting.

I shook the last of the sleep from my brain and stood up, rolling the sleeping bag off me, to stand in just my underwear in front of my assistant. Too late, I realised I was still partially erect. Hayley's eyes were on the bulge in my boxer shorts; she was smiling.

I gathered up the sleeping bag, holding it in front of me to hide my embarrassment.

"Happy to see me?" she asked, gleefully.

"Uh, yeah. No, um, it's just... morning. You know?"

Hayley just stood in the corner of the office, smiling, relishing my discomfort. In truth, there was something about her, the way she stood in the figure-hugging grey skirt in her dark stockings and high heels. Technically, I was her boss, but at this point she had me completely off guard. It crossed my mind that waking up to her on a regular basis wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

I pulled on my pants then deflated the camping mattress and rolled it up, quickly stowing all signs that I had been sleeping in the office overnight, keeping watch over our latest project. That done, we both looked down at the bare floor of the office. It was divided up into large tiles, bare wood in the office but carpeted on the main shop floor. The fit-out was considerably cheaper in the staff areas.

Hayley began to walk across the wood in her high heels, each step making a loud clicking sound as her stilettos struck the floor. She walked up close to me, grinning, then turned and walked back over the floor, each step deliberate, reverberating in the small space. Halfway across the floor, she stopped and crouched down, her calves defined superbly in the dark mesh enveloping her legs. I watched as she hitched her skirt up until she exposed her stocking tops, freeing her legs up for wider movement. Her manicured fingernails reached down to a tiny metal ring set in the floor panel and pulled.

"Breakfast is my favourite part of the day," she announced, smiling up at me as she raised the panel.

There was a gleam in her eye that told me how much she was enjoying herself. I hadn't expected to enjoy it quite so much either, the sight of my assistant revealing her finely-toned legs as she crouched on the office floor. Hayley was clearly also enjoying being watched by me, turning her body slightly and stretching one stocking-clad leg out further for balance, letting me admire the shape of her thigh. Maybe she was enjoying revealing herself to me as much as I was enjoying watching her.

Then, Hayley looked down and her expression changed. I could sense it immediately, her focus shifting from her not-so-subtle tease of her boss to what we had hidden away under the floor plates. Her cheeks flushed as she daintily licked her bottom lip.

"Oh yes," she continued, "It's the most important meal of the day."

I helped her pull the floor tile up. It was large and solid, taking an effort for me to pick it up and set it against the wall. I removed the tile next to it, working until we had pulled up four in a square, removing most of the floor of the office. Following Hayley's rapt gaze, I too looked down.

Under the floor was a black cube. Its surfaces undulated, reflecting the ceiling light, tracing the curves of what we had stored there. For a moment, we were both silent. As I watched, the glossy black surface shifted slightly, gently expanding and contracting in a slow cadence.

Hayley broke the spell, stretching out one stockinged leg and lowering herself into the under-floor. The space below was only as high as her waist, but she crouched down to retrieve a square plastic bag that had been hooked to the side of the black cube. It was pressed flat and empty, connected to the cube by a thin rubber tube. Standing up again, she reached over to a carryall by the foot of the desk and retrieved another plastic bag, but this one was filled with a whiteish substance.

Hayley disconnected the tube and swapped the empty bag for the full one before replacing it on the hook. She knelt again and this time retrieved another bag from the floor. It was inflated with a pale yellow liquid, connected by another tube into the slick black side of the cube. Hayley disconnected it and held it up to me.

"Could you?"

I nodded, taking the bag and heading off to the staff toilets with it. By the time I had emptied it, had a comfort stop of my own, and returned to the office, Hayley was already swapping the first bag out again. It was empty.

"That didn't take long," I commented.

"No. Feeding has gotten a lot more efficient, now that she's used to it."

Hayley replaced the empty bag with another one, this time containing just water. I handed my empty bag back and Hayley reattached the second line.

"There," she said, "Took all of two minutes. We've got it down to an art. Let's close up."

The cube rippled. Hayley laid a hand on the slick, black surface.

"Nearly forgot," she said, "We should check in."

I nodded and fished my phone out of my pocket. I dialled the number and put the phone on speaker. It took several rings before a male voice answered.

"Uh, hi. Everything okay?"

"Yes," I said, "Just letting you know we've finished breakfast. Any requests or questions? Anything you'd like to check up on?"

The voice paused. "No."

In the background, a woman's voice called out, "Who are you talking to?"

The man replied, "Just Tom at the store."

"Oh, good. Everything okay?"

"Yes," I answered.

The woman laughed, a musical, tinkling sound over the speaker. I looked down at the shiny black cube below me. The surface was shifting and writhing.

"Brandon, tell them," she giggled.

The male voice laughed. "Yeah, uh. We were wondering, Tom, if it's all okay at your end, could we maybe extend the storage contract?"

I looked up at Hayley, cocking an eyebrow. She shrugged. It was good money, which made another night on the camping mattress more bearable.

"Sure," I replied, "If that's what you'd like to do."

"Yeah, I think so," Brandon replied, his voice suddenly muffled on the other end of the phone as he let out a groan. "Look, I gotta go. Something's come up."

The woman giggled in the background and then we could hear wet noises over the phone.

"How many days?" I asked.

"Uh... oh babe... just hold on, I need to..."

There was a popping sound and the man cleared his throat. Looking at the cube, the shape sealed within the latex vacuum began to wriggle and squirm violently.

"Sorry. I think at least one more day. Happy to play it by ear. Might turn into an extended break, if you know what I mean."

I was about to reply, but there was another giggle and the line went dead. Hayley was looking to me for direction. I slid the phone back into my pocket.

"You heard the man," I said, "We're extending the storage contract."

"How long?" Hayley asked, her eyes too now on the writhing body, suspended helplessly in the latex vacuum cube.

"I guess until Brandon's ready for his wife back. She seems to have become accustomed to the storage process, so no issues keeping her for a while yet."

I caught Hayley's eye and began to grin. The black shape was seething, making a soft grunting sound. I shrugged.

"Brandon said his wife was a school teacher, right? It's school holidays at the moment, so I guess no-one's going to miss her for as long as a couple of weeks. They'll probably just assume it was his wife that he took away on holiday."

The shiny black shape heaved uselessly beneath our feet as the figure trapped within began to realise the magnitude of her sentence.

"Do you think she wants to be let out?" Hayley asked.

"She signed the paperwork," I replied, "She gave full control over the terms of her storage to her husband. Maybe she just thought he'd keep her stored overnight. I guess that her husband keeping her stored for longer so he could have a holiday with his mistress wasn't something she thought he'd do."

The shape heaved against the black latex. Hayley's face was flushed.

"Really, though, do you think we should check with...?"

"We can't. The contract she signed turned her into Brandon's property, so it's his decision. Property doesn't have an opinion."

The figure strained against the suction around her body, trapped in her latex prison. If she was trying to escape, to call off the storage her husband had ordered for her, it was a futile gesture. The vacuum-wrapped figure was held too firmly. Her only choice was to wait until her husband wanted her released.

"Put the vibrator on low, that'll give her something to occupy her. She's got nothing but time now."

The form below us strained mightily, listening to us casually discussing her fate. I expected that she might be hoping for mercy or respite, but that wasn't part of the contract she had entered into. Smiling at Hayley, I turned it up a notch.

"It's going to be interesting to see what finally emerges from the cube after two weeks of storage," I remarked, casually.

I began to replace the heavy floor tiles one by one, covering over the helpless woman stored in the latex cube underneath the office floor. She was still struggling valiantly against the black plastic sealed around her body, desperate to avoid being forgotten about in storage for weeks while her husband enjoyed the company of his lover. I laid the final tile, shutting her again in darkness.

When I was finished, Hayley made a point of walking up and down the office floor, her high heels clicking on the wood. I could only imagine what hearing that sound would be doing to Brandon's wife, enveloped in the tight black latex cube, suspended in the dark now for an indefinite amount of time and discarded by her husband, as he took his mistress on the holiday that should have been hers.

I looked at my watch and cursed. I had to shower and change quickly, it was nearly time to open the store.

---

I caught up with Hayley at lunchtime as she stood in the staff kitchenette mixing a scoop of baby formula into a measuring jug of warm water.

"Have you ever tasted this stuff?" she asked.

I shook my head, sliding a chunk of lasagne into the microwave.

"Uh, Tom, cover that, otherwise it's going to make the microwave look like a bombsite."

I did as I was told and then set the timer to three minutes.

"How are you holding up?" Hayley asked.

"I haven't breathed fresh air in two days, and I'm trying to sleep on the world's most useless inflatable mattress. We really do sell some shit products," I confessed, ruefully.

"Have you thought about maybe stealing two from the display? Double the padding?"

I gaped at her, and she broke into a laugh.

"Oh Tom, I can't believe you didn't think of that."

Hayley poured the mixture into a square plastic bag and came right up to me, eyes still smiling.

"You can work out how to turn a woman into a rotating coffee table, or how to keep someone alive, watered and fed in a vacuum cube under the floor, but it doesn't occur to you to lie on two mattresses. That's just priceless."

She was mocking me, but I liked it. I liked how green her eyes were when she teased me.

"Give me a hand?" she asked, "It's feeding time for the captive."

I held her gaze for a moment longer then broke off with, "Sure."

I followed Hayley into the office. At the door, she kicked off her shoes and slid into her high heels, click clacking across the wooden floor directly over the head of the trapped woman beneath the floor tiles to announce her presence to her victim. We repeated the same process from the morning, with the office door closed and my body leaning against it in case of intrusions from other staff members. I looked out through the one-way mirror window across the shop floor, keeping an eye on potential interruptions.

Through the glass, it looked just like any other day at Harbinger's. In the office though, a very different scene was playing out. My partner in crime had once again climbed down into the underfloor space, her dress rolled up to her waist to allow ease of motion, her stockings on full display as she fed the woman trapped in the shiny latex cube.

"You done?" I asked, trying to distract myself from the sight of Hayley's half naked body.

Hayley switched the emptied food bag for a bag containing just water. She knelt down to switch the urine bag for an empty one.

"It's going straight through. I guess that's a good sign, right? One bag in, one bag out."

"Yep. Just maybe hurry up though."

Hayley pulled herself up out of the hole and wiggled her skirt back down her legs. We manoeuvred the tiles back into place and Hayley gathered up the used bags. It was only then that I realised I hadn't even paid attention to the woman we were storing. We had repeated this cycle every few hours for a couple of days now, and a part of my brain had somehow stopped processing the fact that we had a living, breathing person sealed in a latex cube beneath the floor. My mind was more occupied with the memory of Hayley's shapely legs in the dark mesh of her thigh-high stockings.

"Uh, Hayley, just got a question."

"Yeah? Shoot."

"You went all out getting dressed today."

"Like it?"

I blinked. "Uh, yeah. Just, why?"

Hayley smiled, seeming to notice my discomfort. "I was just being prepared, if the client was going to collect her. I wanted to make a good impression."

I cleared my throat. "Yeah, you would have. That's quite something."

Hayley grinned, looking down, and continued, "I know, right. Especially with the heels. I'll tell you this much, I love doing this."

Hayley turned around and walked back and forth over the floor, heels ringing out.

"It must be driving her wild. The only noise she can hear under there is the sound of my high heels, and then," Hayley grinned, stopping, "Deathly silence. Imagine what it would be like, unable to see or smell or touch or taste, or hear anything at all, unless it's the sound of your captor coming to change your bags."

Hayley looked down at the floor, suddenly lost in thought.

"She probably doesn't even know what day it is by now. A day must feel like a week when the only feeling you're allowed to experience is when the timer goes on the vibrator."

Hayley flashed me a cheeky grin. She was clearly delighted with herself.

"What? What did you do?" I asked, suspiciously.

"Oh, well. I told her that the timer was set to twice a day, so when it starts buzzing inside her, she knows that twelve hours have gone by. But I lied. I set the timer for every six hours. If all she has to tell the passage of time is when she's edged to the brink of orgasm, she already thinks it's well past the weekend. She'll think Brandon has forgotten all about her, off entertaining himself with another woman."

I surveyed her carefully. The pretty, girl-next-door face belied something deeper, something that relished being in control. She was twisting the reality of her powerless captive for no other reason than her own amusement.

"So now you're doing magic tricks with time?"

"Oh no," she said, "I'm just the magician's assistant."

Hayley pulled up her skirt until she showed just the tops of her stockings.

"I'm here to misdirect and confuse, while the maestro does his work."

"Work," I repeated, "Yes. We're supposed to be back from lunch, let's go."

---

Brandon called me just after lunch, confirming that the pick-up was still going to be today, despite the earlier phone conversation that had been solely for his wife's consumption. It seemed that Hayley and Brandon had the same desire, to tease and torture the woman in the cube until she had no idea of what day it really was or when she could expect to be released. I happened to be in the office doing paperwork when the call came through. We chatted for a few moments and I gave him an appraisal of how well his wife was coping with her sensory deprivation captivity. As I ended the call, I heard a faint sound from beneath my feet.

I checked the time: Brandon's wife was having another of her scheduled edging sessions sealed in her latex cube. Even through the thick wood, the latex and the breath gag I'd strapped over her face, her groans of endless frustration filtered weakly up through the floor. I imagined the poor creature would have agreed to just about anything by this point if it meant she was granted a climax, having been stimulated and denied over and over for two days. For all she knew, her husband was just going to keep her hidden away from the world in storage until the day, two weeks from now, when he returned from holiday with his lover to turn his latex-encased property back into a person again.

I finished my report and headed out of the office. Before I closed the door, I listened intently. The sound had ceased, which meant our captive was once again beginning a six-hour slow simmer of arousal. I had to admit, Hayley's inventive cruelty had impressed me. Yes, I thought, the mind of Brandon's wife would probably be reduced to mush by now. It was probably for the best that we would be releasing her today, before any permanent behavioural changes began to ingrain themselves.

---

I spent a lot of the day in the office, and at closing time I was poring through ordering sheets when I heard a knock at the door. Hayley poked her head in a moment later.

"They're here," she squeaked, her eyes bright with excitement.

"Have you locked up?"

"Yes boss, we are secured."

Hayley even flipped me a salute.

"You're keen. I thought you'd miss having your plaything to torture."

Hayley made a face. "You have such a low opinion of my professionalism."

I waved her away, standing up to clear the floor space.

"Just bring them in," I called as I pushed the desk chair into the corner of the room.

A couple of minutes later, I heard the rolling of wheels and looked up. Hayley was leading a large, bald man and a petite woman up the ramp to the office. They were each wheeling a large suitcase.