Chapter 70: The women make their town debut, instantly becoming the center of attention as their impossible bodies and leaking nectar drive the townsfolk into a frenzy of sexual abandon.
The walk into town had been a study in silent restraint. The rough wool of our borrowed dresses—Elara’s idea of “demure”—itched against skin that felt too sensitive, too alive. Every shift of fabric was a chafe. The bindings we’d wound tight around our chests were a necessary prison, flattening the impossible swell into something merely suspect under the thick cloth. It was like wearing a sigh that never ended.
The town’s main street unfolded under a flat, grey sky. It felt smaller than I remembered, the buildings leaning in like gossips. A few people glanced our way, their eyes sliding over three tall, strangely-dressed women before sticking to the safety of shop windows. Good. We were an oddity, not a spectacle.
Cora nudged me with an elbow, nodding toward a storefront. “Bell’s Dry Goods & Apparel.” The window displayed a headless mannequin in a floral print dress that looked like it had surrendered any will to live. “That’ll do.”
A bell jingled above the door, a shrill sound in the hush of the store. The air inside was warm, stale, tasting of synthetic fiber and lavender-scented disinfectant. Racks of clothing formed cramped canyons. My skin prickled. Too many corners. Not enough sky.
A woman emerged from behind a curtain at the back. Mid-forties, with a kind, tired face and a tape measure draped around her neck like a silken noose. “Ladies,” she said, her smile polite, professional. “What can I help you with today?”
“Dresses,” Elara said, her voice a smooth, low rumble that seemed to vibrate in the dead air. “Three. For everyday. Sturdy fabric. Room to move.”
“Of course.” The woman’s eyes, a pale blue, darted between us, taking inventory. They skimmed my cropped red hair, Elara’s severe black braid, Cora’s fluffy brown bun. They travelled downward, and that’s where they stalled.
Her professional smile froze. A faint, pink flush began at the base of her throat and crept steadily upward. We were standing still, but I felt her gaze like a physical touch—a measuring, bewildered sweep over shoulders that were too broad, hips that flared dramatically under the drab wool, and, most damningly, the chests that even brutal binding could not fully conceal.
“Measurements,” she breathed, more to herself than to us. Her fingers fiddled with the tape. “We’ll… we’ll need your measurements.”
We exchanged a glance. A silent agreement passed between us. The game was here, in this fluorescent-lit box. Not in the woods.
“Alright,” Cora said, her voice light, cheerful. She stepped forward first, shedding her coarse cloak with a shrug. It pooled on the linoleum. The attendant—Bev, her name tag said—flinched as if Cora had drawn a weapon.
Cora stood, arms slightly out, in her simple shift. The plain linen did nothing to hide the truth. It draped over slopes and curves that had no business on a human frame accustomed to farm labor. Bev approached as one might approach a sleeping bear. Her hands trembled slightly as she looped the tape around Cora’s bust.
The number she murmured was impossible. She measured again, her knuckles brushing Cora’s bound fullness. She flushed a deeper crimson.“Your… your proportions are…” she stammered, moving to the waist, her eyes wide. The differential was laughable, a cartoonist’s fantasy. Yet here it was, warm and breathing, smelling of forest and honey.
She moved to Elara next, her movements more hesitant. Elara stood like an oak, imposing and still. Bev’s hands were tiny against her. When the tape went around Elara’s chest, Bev gasped. It was a small, sharp intake of air. Elara looked down at her, a faint, unreadable smile on her lips.
“See something you like?” Elara asked, her tone deliberately mild.
Bev jumped, snatching her hands back as if burned. “I’m sorry! It’s just… structurally… the support you must require…” She was babbling, her professional veneer cracking to reveal raw, flustered wonder.
My turn. Her fingers were cool against my skin as she measured my narrower, but still absurd, bust. Her blush was permanent now, a hot stain on her cheeks. She smelled of laundry soap and a thin, nervous sweat. Her gaze kept getting trapped in the valley of my bound breasts, before skittering away, only to be pulled back.
When she was finished, she stood back, clutching her notepad to her chest like a shield. The three of us, a tribunal of flesh, looked at her. The hum of the lights was loud.
“So,” Cora said, breaking the silence. Her voice was all innocent curiosity. “You’ve taken the measurements of every woman in the county, I’d wager.”
“Oh, yes, for years,” Bev whispered.
“Then you’ve got a basis for comparison.” Cora took a step forward. Bev didn’t retreat. She was mesmerized. “Between the three of us… who’s the hottest?”
Bev’s mouth opened, then closed. This wasn’t in the retail manual. She looked at Cora, at the goddess-like abundance, the round, friendly face that promised earthy, boundless pleasure. “You… you are… magnificently built,” she stammered, her voice gaining a thread of genuine awe. “It’s like… classical sculpture. A Rubens. It shouldn’t be possible to carry that with such… such effortless grace. You look like you could birth nations and then bake the庆祝面包.”
A slow, delighted smile spread across Cora’s face. She nodded, as if acknowledging a simple truth.
Bev’s eyes shifted to Elara. “And you… you’re different. It’s not just size. It’s the architecture. The shoulders, the way you’re built… it’s powerful. Commanding. Like you could lift a plow or split a tree. And yet… the curve here,” she gestured vaguely toward Elara’s hip, “it’s… severe. Dramatic. It’s not friendly. It’s breathtaking.” She swallowed. “It’s intimidating.”
Elara’s chin lifted a fraction. Acknowledged.
Then Bev looked at me. Her gaze softened, confused in a new way. “And you… you’re like the heartwood of a young sapling. Slender, but… dense. Strong. It’s not just what’s there, it’s the promise of it. The… the potential. And the color,” she said, staring at my hair, my skin, the faint freckles across my chest visible above the neckline. “You burn. Even in this light, you look like you’ve swallowed a piece of the autumn forest. It’s… it’s not fair.”
The last part slipped out, a confession. She clapped a hand over her mouth, horrified.
But the judgement was in. Not a ranking, but an appraiser’s catalogue. We were all different kinds of impossible.
I felt something then, a shift in the store’s air. The lavender scent was gone, overwhelmed by the scent of us—warm skin, green sap, and that deep, golden nectar that no binding could entirely contain. Bev breathed it in. Her pupils dilated. The fear-leftover from the woods, the anxiety of town—it melted from my shoulders. We weren’t freaks here. We were wonders.
“We’ll take three dresses,” I said, my voice calm, clear. “In the fabrics you recommend. Make them well.”
Bev just nodded, mute, and scurried to the back to fetch bolts of cloth.
As she worked, cutting and pinning, her hands steadied. But her eyes kept drifting back to us, hungry and reverent. She was marking her memory. The town would know by sundown.
We left an hour later with promises that the garments would be ready in a week. The bell jingled again as we stepped back into the grey afternoon.
“Well,” Elara said, adjusting her cloak. “We’ve made a convert.”
“Or a missionary,” Cora chuckled.
I looked back at the shop window. Bev stood there, behind the floral-print mannequin, watching us go. Her hand was pressed to the glass.
We walked on, the bindings tight, the secret heavy and sweet within us. We had shown a single thread of our power, the mere geometry of it, and it had bent the world in this small, stuffy room. The next step would be to show it could bend more than just a seamstress’s eye. The thought wasn’t frightening anymore. It was a small, warm ember in my chest, waiting for air.