Modelling the New Product

This story contains themes of brainwashing and mind control. It's meant purely as a fantasy.

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Maria Walsh eyed her reflection critically in the mirror on the back wall as the elevator carried her upwards to her destination, meeting room two on floor fifty-three of the building, near the top floor of the massive corporate headquarters of LynnTech.

She had to look good today. She was going to be a model. Just for a day, of course. But still.

She still couldn't believe that she had won this contest. LynnTech had thousands of employees. If even a fraction of the female ones had applied she still had to have beat dozens of women to be selected. Signing up for the contest for the right to help model the new product line had been a joke, pretty much. Every one of her colleagues who joined her in competing for a shot at working the shoot told themselves that, Maria was convinced. That didn't change the fact that she was thrilled to be selected. She had squealed so loud that most of the sales floor had heard her.

She had more or less just smiled and nodded as miss Hendricks, her manager's manager, talked her through everything. She had been buzzing with excitement, too wound up to really pay attention to the woman's words. She got the gist of it. In a few months' time LynnTech would roll out a new series of what she had described as audio-neural interfaces. Maria had had no idea what that meant. The ones the older woman showed her just looked like ordinary wireless bluetooth earbuds to her.

The idea was to do a photo shoot featuring an ordinary LynnTech employee alongside a pair of professional models. Of course down the line there would be a more traditional promotional campaign - advertisements in trade magazines, endorsements from social media influencers, that sort of thing - but the opening salvo would be the photo shoot.

Then the woman had launched into an explanation of the way the earbuds functioned. Maria hadn't listened much. The tech behind the products never interested her much, beyond what she needed to know as a sales rep. She could blindly rattle off the specs of dozens of different products but if she were asked what made them tick she'd undoubtedly come up blank.

The woman who looked back to her in the mirror definitely wouldn't look out of place in a photo shoot, she told herself. She took pride in her appearance. Three years out of college she had managed to hang on to her figure mostly through diet and exercise, but her facial features told her she had been blessed in the genetics department too.

She had dressed the same way she dressed for work every day, the picture of professionalism, navy slacks with a matching blazer covering a cream-coloured blouse. She had been told that an outfit for the shoot would be provided for her, of course...

The only thing that stood out as unusual was that she wasn't wearing the make up she normally wore, but the instructions she had received about that were quite explicit. There'd be a make up artist on site to handle that. That thought brought a fresh flutter of excitement to the pit of her stomach.

She stepped out of the elevator, her heels clicking softly on the tiled floor. She looked around for a moment. There were no signs indicating where meeting room two could be found. She had never even been this high up in the building.

She took a deep breath, made a mental coin flip and started walking left, her steps echoing along the white painted walls. The fact that the first door she passed was labelled 'Meeting Room 1' told her that she had made the right choice.

Sure enough, she turned the corner and found meeting room two on her right hand side. The door was a simple panel of frosted glass with a vertical metal bar on one side. She hesitated for a moment, then knocked.

When no immediate response came she reached into the inside pocket of her blazer and pulled out her phone. The appointment notification '11:00 shoot - meeting room 2, fl.53' showed on the unlock screen, and the clock in the top right read 10:57.

She was just about to knock again when the door was opened again. "Heya!" a breathless voice greeted her.

The woman who opened the door had to be the photographer. That much was obvious from the fact that she had an expensive looking digital camera hanging from around her neck. She was a good seven or eight inches shorter than Maria, and looked to be in her early twenties at the oldest. Maria couldn't help but feel a brief pang of disdain for how... unprofessional the younger woman looked. Her hair was a dark blue pixie cut, her impish face a riot of freckles. She was a skinny thing, dressed in boots, baggy jeans and a black tank top featuring the logo of a band Maria didn't recognise.

"I'm here for the photo shoot?" Maria said after a moment, trying to keep her voice from sounding cold. "I'm the model." she added.

"Oh yes, come in, come in." the photographer smiled. "My name is Stacy by the way. I'm really excited to be working on this project with you."

Maria could tell as much from the younger woman's body language. She looked like the kind of person who would find it impossible to sit still.

The meeting room that she was ushered into was barely recognizable as such. It had been stripped of all of its usual furniture. The windows were covered by stretches of dark cloth, blocking out all sunlight. It was obvious where the shoot would take place. The walls and floor of one corner of the room were covered in pristine white sheets. Several two by two by two foot cubes clad in teal and dark purple leather - the LynnTech colours - were scattered around. Maria figured that that would be where they'd be doing their posing. The whole area was cordoned off with spot lights and screens.

Maria was just about to turn around when the photographer spoke up. "Neat, huh? We would have gotten better light in my studio but given the nature of the shoot your bosses figured it would be better if we did it in house."

The nature of the shoot? Maria shrugged. She had no idea what was so special about this shoot that they couldn't do it in a space designed for it. She looked down at Stacy as the younger woman reached into one of the many pockets of her baggy jeans and pulled out a small square box made of shiny black plastic. She popped the lid. It held a pair of the earbuds that Maria would be modelling today.

Maria gave the photographer a questioning look, but Stacy just flashed her a happy grin. "Try them on! We need to see how they look on you, and if they work!"

Maria blinked. If they worked? Surely these were just dummies... Still, Stacy was the professional... She took them and eyed them critically. Two green LEDs were flickering on and off on the little rubber curve that would sit behind the shell of her ear. Not dummies then.

As she carefully put them in Stacy headed over to a laptop that had been set up on a table, typing away busily for a few seconds, the sound of keystrokes interspersed with mouse clicks. After a few seconds the earbuds chimed. It was followed by a few seconds of static punctuated by odd tapping noises. Then the noise, already soft in Maria's ears, slowly faded.

"Perfect!" Stacy announced as she rose up. A moment later there was a bright flash from the camera hanging around her neck. Maria was briefly blinded. She blinked several times to get the blue and purple after-images of the ring flash out of her eyes. Was that really necessary?

"Stand on your right foot for me, will you?" Stacy asked happily. Before Maria could fully process the question she felt her left foot pull up. She frowned and lowered it again. Where had that come from? She gave Stacy an annoyed look, but the blue-haired photographer just grinned.

"Right." Maria sighed, deciding to reassert herself a little. "I suppose you'll want me to get changed then?"

"Oh yes!" Stacy said brightly. "Over there. Your outfit is on a hanger. Everything you'll need to wear for the shoot."

Her thumb pointed to a door on the far end of the meeting room. Maria figured that they had cleared out the meeting room's AV closet. A cursory glance of the space she stepped into proved her guess right. It was a small room, just nine by six feet, bare walls and a carpeted floor that still showed impressions of where chairs and other things had been stacked up for months on end. Now everything was cleared out and two long wooden benches lined the walls. The fact that there were two gym bags sitting in one corner told Maria that the other models she would be posing alongside of had already changed.

Then her eyes fell on the outfit, such as it was. The garment was on a hanger as promised, on a peg on the wall. It looked like a dress with parts cut away, including most of the skirt. It would be incredibly short on her. She frowned. She had provided her measurements as part of her entry in the contest. Surely she wasn't going to wear this...?

Just as the hesitant thought entered her brain the earbuds seemed to flare up again, more soft static, more of those odd clicks and pops, just for a few seconds. Then they faded again. She frowned, reaching up with her right hand as if to remove them. Then she stopped. No. She was supposed to wear them.

She didn't give the odd conflicting thought regarding her removing the clearly malfunctioning earbuds any real thought beyond explaining it away to herself by reminding herself that it was a photo shoot. Occasional odd noises wouldn't show up on the pictures anyway.

With a soft sigh Maria shed her clothes, down to her underwear. She had had no idea what to expect from the outfit that would have been provided for her, so she had erred on the side of caution. The underwear she was wearing consisted of things she usually wore when going out in some of her more scandalous outfits, a strapless bra and a thong cut in such a way that it sat low on her hips, minimizing the risk of her undergarments creating unsightly lines in whatever outfit she would wear.

Now barefoot and all but naked Maria reached for the dress. The more she looked at it, the more impossibly tiny it looked. The colours were purple and teal, company colours, interspersed with vertical bands of white that seemed to converge somewhere around where her navel would be. She vaguely recalled seeing similar outfits on models the company hired to work trade show floors. But their dresses hadn't been this short, had they?

Once again, she found her own mind overriding her questions about the nature of the modelling job. As the earbuds hissed softly in her ears she reached for the dress, taking it off of the hanger. After all, sex sold. And she was chosen to be sexy...

She frowned, and even as she did the static in her ears got louder. She knew that sex sold, but that didn't mean that she should be the one using hers to sell it, should she? But no... as the tapping and popping in her ears continued her thoughts realigned themselves. She had been chosen as the model from dozens, possibly hundreds of candidates. This was an honour.

So she pulled down the dress from the hanger and undid the zipper that ran from the collar all the way to the bottom of the skirt, opening it up. The material turned out to be stretchy, some sort of spandex. It clung to her slender form. She found that the dress had been cut in such a way that it left her back and sides completely exposed, the skirt and top half only connected by the two inches or so of fabric that extended from either size of the zipper. She ran it up slowly. The fabric felt like it was moulded to her body.

A tall mirror had been set up in one of the corners of the improvised dressing room. She eyed her reflection critically. The dress really was scandalously short, leaving almost three quarters of her thighs exposed. She lifted her leg experimentally to see how much range of movement she had before the garment became indecent...

As the first flash of black fabric of her panties became visible another thought struck her, insinuating itself into her brain. Stacy had told her that everything she would need on the hanger... and her underwear hadn't been part of that.

Surely that hadn't been what the manic pixie photographer had meant? She ran her hands down the dress slowly. In her reflection her expression showed a slight blush of embarrassment. It wasn't like the underwear was visible, even with how the fabric clung to her body...

And yet, before she had even fully realised that she was doing it her hands had reached for the zipper of her dress once more, pulling it down to her belly button. Her hands shook as she peeled off the dress, then unclasped her bra, baring her pert breasts to the cool air in the dressing room. Almost immediately her nipples seemed to firm up. Maria let out a small gasp, her hands shooting up to cover them, as if someone could see her standing there half-naked.

Just then there was a knock on the door. "Maria? Is everything alright in there?"

It was Stacy, even after only a few minutes with the photographer she'd recognize that manic voice anywhere. She sighed softly. "I'm fine, I just need a moment to make everything fit."

"Alright honey, whenever you're ready." came the reply, the voice cheerful as always. Maria sighed, letting go of her breasts. She was being silly, she couldn't help but think. It was those earbuds with their intermittent static that were making her agitated.

And yet, when she reached for the buds to remove them once again the static only got louder, until it was all she could hear. She was unaware of Stacy at the other side of the wall, on her laptop, entering new commands.

The static, interspersed with clicks and pops, seemed to change in rhythm. Then, once again, it faded into the background as Maria lowered her hands. She sighed softly. She really was being silly. Being chosen to do this was an honour. She should hurry up. She still had to get her hair and make up done. And meet the other models. That filled her with a thrill of excitement. She had been chosen because she'd be just as pretty as the models.

If she hadn't been so on edge she might have wondered where that thought had come from. She wasn't a vain woman, was she? No. She was just... she was just nervous. She had to be.

No time to be backing out now.

She zipped the dress up again and eyed her reflection once more. She was sure that she could see her nipples pebbling against the stretchy fabric, much more visible than they would have been if she had still been wearing her bra. But Stacy's instructions had been quite clear.

Which was why she reached underneath the scandalously short skirt of the dress, fumbling around with her slender fingers until her panties slipped down her toned legs to pool around her ankles. She picked them up and stared at them. Had she just...?

As she stood there questioning herself there was another knock on the door. "Maria? I forgot to tell you about the boots! They're under the bench." came Stacy's voice.

Maria sighed, hurrying back to her pile of clothes, taking a moment to fold them, more or less. Then she squatted down. There was indeed a pair of boots under the bench.

They were black, and looked long enough to cover most of her legs, with pointed toes and blocky heels a little over an inch in height. Maria actually felt relieved. Given her dress, they could have been so much worse.

She sat down on the bench and set to work peeling them over her legs. They turned out to leave a good three or four inches of exposed skin between the hem of her skirt and the tops of the boots.

As she pulled up the long zipper running along the inside of her left leg she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. She gasped, slamming her legs shut almost immediately. She had seen it for a fraction of a second, but suddenly she became very much aware of how exposed she was left with the impossibly short skirt and without her panties. She reached down, tugging on the stretchy fabric, but all she seemed to achieve was pulling it tighter over the rest of her body.

She finished zipping up the boots and rose to her feet. The blocky heels made her feel a little wobbly on her feet but she could see her reflection in the mirror, showing her that they had their intended effect - shifting her stance, causing certain parts of her body to press harder against the stretchy fabric of the dress than they had been before, showing them off.

Right. Showtime. She had to remember to keep her legs together.

As soon as she stepped out of the dressing room there was another bright flash of blinding light, almost causing her to stumble back against the door she had just passed through. When the after-effects of the flash passed she could once again see Stacy's mischievous grin. "You look perfect! Come, come, I'll do your hair and make up."

There was something about Stacy's hand against her upper back, left mostly bare by the skimpy dress, that made the hairs on the back of Maria's neck stand up. But in her unusually high heels she found it hard to fight back against her being coaxed towards what was obviously the make up table, judging by the mirror that had been set up, along with the cases.

"H-hey! I thought there'd be a make up artist!" Maria protested, weakly.

Stacy just grinned, opening up the case. "I'm an artist, and I'm doing your make up! Don't worry about it!"

Maria frowned. She did worry about it. The whole impromptu nature of this photo shoot was getting on her nerves more and more. And the impossibly tiny spandex dress she was wearing made her feel incredibly exposed, vulnerable. She could see in the mirror that the tight dress she was wearing left very little to the imagination in terms of her body. And the hissing of the earbuds returned with a vengeance.

She found it hard to sit still as Stacy began applying some foundation to her cheeks. She folded her hands in her lap, but that mostly just reminded her of the fact that the skirt of the damn dress were impossibly short.

She had to admit, Stacy knew what she was doing with the make up. She worked with quick, practised moves. And, she had to admit, the two-tone eye shadow matching the colours of her dress was a nice touch. And what she did with the lip gloss was magic.

Maria's lips weren't quite as full as she would have liked them to be, but by the time Stacy was done with them they looked wonderful. She once again stuck to the company colours, letting purple make up the majority of the colouring but letting it fade to teal around the edges. She finished it up with a clear top coat.

"Ehrm... Is that extra coat really necessary?" Maria asked after a moment.

"Of course!" Maria chirped happily. "We wouldn't want your lip gloss to smear."

Smear? Was she going to eat the earbuds? No... her lip gloss shouldn't smear. Stacy just wanted her to look good. Maria barely recognised the woman who looked back at her in the mirror. She tilted her head slowly, this way and that, her tongue briefly darting out over her painted lips. Was this how the women manning the LynnTech booths at the trade shows looked?

She was caught off guard by Stacy's spray bottle. The mist of cold water droplets that descended on her scalp caused her to shiver slightly.

"Sorry." Stacy giggled, clearly amused by the scandalized look Maria gave her. "I need to do your hair too, remember? Don't worry, it'll only take a minute..."

Maria sighed, settling down again. She watched as Stacy ran a brush through her long brown hair. It was parted down the middle, and a few minutes later she was left with a pair of pigtails high on her head. She frowned a little as Stacy picked up a bottle of hairspray. The chemical smell filled her nostrils as the photographer used the spray to add some volume to her new hairdo.

"Isn't this a little childish?" Maria asked with a frown as she watched Stacy work.