29 Nov The Second Skin

Part I

Mindy Ayers noticed the new girl’s reflection before she noticed her.

The conference room’s wall of glass caught everyone at the table in unflattering profile, except for the woman near the head. On the far right pane, Mindy’s own reflection blurred where the fluorescent light broke across it: soft jaw, soft arms, a blouse that pulled wrong across her stomach. Beside that, in sharp, clean lines, was the new marketing hire whose name everyone remembered after one introduction.

Angela. Perfect teeth. Perfect hair. Perfect posture. The kind of woman whose laugh made people lean closer instead of flinch.

“And that’s why we need a cleaner visual identity,” Angela was saying, tapping through her slides. “Minimalism, strong silhouettes, fewer distractions. People respond to confidence.”

A few of the guys chuckled. Someone murmured, “Exactly,” in the tone reserved for speakers who already had the job everyone else wanted.

Mindy touched the seam of her sleeve under the table and tried to sit straighter. The chair creaked. She felt her blouse pull tighter across her midsection and imagined every eye against her, weighing and measuring.

“Thoughts, Mindy?” her manager asked down the length of the table.

She stared at the projection, at the comparison slide Angela had put together. Before and After. The “Before” was cluttered, busy, cheap. The “After” was sleek, pared down, decisive. She thought about the presentation she had given two quarters ago with similar suggestions, ignored then and now apparently brilliant when framed by better cheekbones.

“It makes sense,” she said. “Cleaner lines. Stronger contrast. I think it’s the right direction.”

Her manager nodded, already looking past her. “Good. We’ll build from Angela’s framework.”

Mindy swallowed the rest of what she’d planned to say. A question passed around the table about rollout timelines. Her input wasn’t needed.

On the glass wall, her reflection sat there in a blouse that had never fit quite right, next to Angela’s outline: shoulders set back, neck long, waist neat, not a single fold showing under the fitted blazer. Even reflected light clung to her in a different way.

The meeting broke. Chairs scraped. Conversations clustered around the new girl. Mindy shut her laptop and slid it into her bag with careful hands.

“You okay?” a voice said quietly at her side.

Tonya Marquez leaned against the doorframe, one brow raised. Tonya wore her curly hair tied back in a bandana, dark blazer over a T-shirt, jeans that somehow still passed for business casual. Pretty, but not polished in the same way. She had the kind of presence that dismissed dress codes by existing.

“Fine,” Mindy said. “Why?”

“Because you get the same look on your face after every meeting where someone uses the words ‘strong silhouettes’ and everyone stares at your torso.”

Mindy’s cheeks burned. “Nobody was staring.”

“Sure,” Tonya said. “And I don’t mainline espresso to avoid committing homicide before nine.”

They stepped into the hall. In the reflection there, too, Angela’s figure moved up the corridor, surrounded by people. Thin, clean lines. Not a trace of doubt.

“It’s just work,” Mindy said. “It doesn’t matter.”

Tonya gave her a searching look but let it go. “You want to hit the gym tonight? Couple of us are doing laps, maybe some weights.”

“Maybe,” Mindy said, which Tonya knew meant no.

“Okay. But if your ghost starts haunting this conference room, I’m not filing the report. ‘Cause of death: branding envy.’”

Mindy smiled mechanically. The humor bounced off something inside and didn’t stick.

By the time she left the office, the sky had gone the gray-brown of late autumn, the city color leached out. Wind whistled between the buildings, snapping at her coat. Traffic smeared into streaks of red and white. She cut away from the busier avenue, the one where she might see coworkers at the wine bar, and took a quieter side street toward the transit stop two blocks down.

She almost missed the boutique.

The shopfront had been empty last week, paper over the windows, For Lease sign curling at the corners. Tonight, the paper was gone. The glass was spotless, clearer than the sky, bright from within. The sign above the door read simply:

SECOND SKIN

The letters were matte black on a cream background, simple and oddly magnetic. The window display was even stranger.

No brands. No posters. No racks crowded with clothes.

There were only three figures—mannequins, she thought at first—but their surfaces were too smooth, their outlines too exact. They stood in a staggered line: one facing the street, two angled inward. All wore the same garment: a black bodysuit that covered them from ankles to throat, high at the hip, long-sleeved, throat-skimming. The fabric had no sheen. It drank the light around it, outlining each curve in clean, unbroken shadow.

For a moment Mindy had the sense that they were not blank, that something watched her from behind their featureless, egg-smooth heads. Her gaze slid away and landed on the small placard propped between them.

It read: IT WILL FIT YOU BETTER THAN YOUR OWN SKIN.

She stood there, hand half-lifted to her scarf, feeling the wind pull at her hair. Her reflection caught in the glass, superimposed over the mannequins—a pale, rounder face in front of three flawless forms.

She could already hear Tonya’s voice if she mentioned this place: That sounds like a horror movie, Mindy, are you trying to get murdered?

The thought made her fingers tighten on her bag’s strap.

The door opened without a sound when she pushed it.

Inside, the volume of the city dropped away. No music, no chatter, just the faint hum of vents and the soft pad of her shoes on pale wood flooring. The air carried a faint scent she couldn’t place—something clean, almost metallic, with an undertone like pressed flowers left too long between pages.

“Welcome.”

The woman at the far end of the boutique stepped out from behind a simple white counter. She wore one of the black bodysuits, but tailored—if that was the word—with a high collar and a narrow belt that accentuated a waist Mindy would have sworn was sculpted by a designer’s pencil and not genetics.

Her hair was dark and sleek, brushed back from a face that would photograph well at any angle: cheekbones precise, nose straight, lips tinted a color that didn’t quite exist in drugstores. Her eyes were the most disconcerting part: pale gray, almost colorless, and fixed on Mindy with a focus that felt clinical.

“Hi,” Mindy said. Her voice sounded wrong in the clean, echoing space. “I was just—looking.”

“I know,” the woman said. “You’ve been walking past this block for weeks.”

Mindy blinked. “Have you been open that long?”

“Open?” The woman tilted her head, as if tasting the word. “We arrive when needed. You’re Mindy, correct?”

A tiny electric shock zinged along Mindy’s spine.

“How do you—”

“Your badge.” The woman nodded slightly toward Mindy’s coat lapel. The company logo peeked from under the fabric, her name in small letters beneath. “We see a lot of your coworkers. They’re fond of strong silhouettes.”

Something in the way she said it made the phrase sound faintly mocking, or perhaps simply accurate.

“I’m Sable,” the woman went on. “I curate fittings here.”

There were no racks, Mindy realized now. No hangers, no displays beyond the window. Only the three figures at the front, and a single freestanding screen in the back corner with a low bench beside it like a makeshift changing area.

“I don’t have an appointment,” Mindy said. “And I… probably can’t afford anything here.”

“We don’t do appointments,” Sable said. “We do matches. As for cost—perfection is always expensive. But you’d be surprised what people are willing to pay once they see themselves.”

Heat flared behind Mindy’s eyes. “I never said anything about perfection.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Sable stepped closer, and Mindy’s sense of personal space compressed. The bodysuit on her moved with each step without so much as a wrinkle. Up close, Mindy saw no zipper, no seam, nothing to indicate how it went on or came off.

Sable’s gaze traveled over her, unhurried. It didn’t have the cruel curiosity of the girls in middle school gym class or the bored judgement of strangers on the subway. It was something else—an appraisal, as if she were a piece of stock waiting to be cut.

“You’re not far,” Sable said softly. “The bones are correct. The proportions are workable. The rest is a matter of refinement. You’ve tried, haven’t you? Diets, programs, apps that count every bite, every step.”

Mindy’s throat tightened. “Everyone does.”

“Everyone,” Sable agreed. “But not everyone commits. You want the world to stop seeing the version of you they’ve been trained to see. You want them to see the one you know is underneath.”

Mindy’s hand drifted, unbidden, to her middle. She thought of the meeting, the reflection, the way Angela’s jacket lay smooth as poured ink over her frame.

“What is it?” she asked.

Sable smiled. It wasn’t comforting, but it was practiced, a movement that suggested she had done this many times before and always with the same outcome.

“Second Skin,” she said. “It will fit you better than your own.”

She gestured toward the screen.

Mindy hesitated. Bus schedules, dinner plans, the stale leftovers waiting in her fridge—these felt far away now, like details from a life that had happened to someone else.

“Just to see,” she heard herself say.

“Exactly,” Sable replied.

The changing area was more alcove than room, partitioned by the tall screen. A full-length mirror stood opposite the bench, its frame thin and black as a calligrapher’s line. On the bench lay a folded piece of fabric, dark as the gaps between stars.

Mindy picked it up.

It felt warm. Not body-heat warm—something deeper, as if it held its own temperature. The material slid over her fingers like water and yet had weight, a subtle tug that made her think of hands, of grip.

“You can undress,” Sable’s voice came, shaped by the screen. “It likes direct contact.”

“It?” Mindy said.

“The suit,” Sable said. “You’ll see.”

Mindy set down her bag, her coat, peeled off the blouse that had never sat right. Under the overhead light, every flaw she knew by heart seemed to jump into high relief. Soft stomach. High waist. Thighs she had spent years hating in changing rooms and bathroom selfies.

She stepped into the bodysuit.

It rose up her legs without effort, the fabric stretching and sliding without catching. When it reached her hips, there was a subtle resistance, like a breath taken and held, and then it settled. She pulled it higher, over her torso, her arms. It clung as it went, smoothing, compressing, reshaping.

When she drew the high neck up under her chin, the opening closed at the back of her throat with a faint, almost inaudible sound. Like lips sealing.

She turned to the mirror.

For a moment, she didn’t recognize the figure staring back at her.

The bodysuit traced every line of her body and corrected it, the way a good editor corrected a draft—removing what didn’t serve the final product. The swell of her stomach looked flatter, the curve of her waist more defined. Her shoulders appeared narrower, her legs lengthened.

Her skin beneath felt… arranged. As if the suit had taken liberties with the order of things, pulling and redistributing, making everything align.

“Oh,” Sable said from just beyond the screen, though Mindy hadn’t called her. “Yes. That’s much better.”

Mindy opened her mouth to answer and then went still.

Something pressed, faintly, at the inside of the suit, as if a hand had settled against her lower back from beneath the fabric. It was not a cramp. It was not a muscle twitch.

It was contact.

Part II

Mindy didn’t remember paying.

One moment she was staring at herself in the boutique’s mirror, skin prickling beneath the suit as that phantom pressure held steady at her lower back; the next, she was stepping out onto the sidewalk, a pale shopping bag in her hand, the boutique door whispering shut behind her.

The wind slapped her coat open. For a panicked second she thought the suit would show through her clothes—some unnatural gleam, some telltale pattern—but the coat fell flat, and only the snug catch of the fabric beneath reminded her it was still there. More than there.
Attached.

She looked back over her shoulder. The windows were still too clean. The mannequins stood motionless under the sterile lighting. Sable was gone.

A heaviness bloomed low in Mindy’s stomach as the street noise rushed back in around her. She pressed the bag tighter to her side and hurried to the transit stop.

At home, the apartment’s dim lamplight felt like an interrogation. Shadows stretched long across the floor, and for several seconds, she simply stood in the entryway, unsure how she’d gotten there. She set the shopping bag on the counter with care, though she couldn’t have said why—it was empty.

The suit clung to her beneath her clothes like a second presence.

She exhaled slowly and peeled off her coat, then her blouse, then her slacks. Every layer felt heavier than the last, like her body was resisting exposure. When she stood before the bathroom mirror in the bodysuit alone, she expected to see a seam, a zipper, some indication of how it was meant to be removed.

There was nothing.

The neckline that had sealed itself at the boutique looked seamless now, as if it had grown that way. The wrists lay flush against her skin, no more than shadows marking the transition. Even the fabric’s weave had changed—it was smoother, darker, almost organic.

Her pulse flickered in her throat.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Off.”

She hooked her fingers under the collar.

The suit did not move.

She pulled harder. The collar stretched a little…and then tightened abruptly with a snap of pressure that made her gasp.

Her fingers slipped free.

A heartbeat later, the pressure eased, loosening into a faint, warning squeeze around her ribcage. Not painful, but unmistakably sentient.

“No,” she said, barely breath. “No, no—”

She tried again, this time grasping the fabric at her shoulder and dragging downward. The material thinned, stretched, but held fast. When she yanked harder, a sudden band of constriction wrapped around her midsection, like an invisible belt tightening notch by notch.

Her knees buckled. She grabbed the counter for support.

“That’s not—this can’t—”

The suit relaxed the moment she stopped pulling. The pressure receded. Her breath steadied.

She leaned forward, palms pressed to the countertop, her reflection trembling in the mirror. “It’s just compression,” she told herself. “Some kind of…athletic garment thing. Like a corset. It’s—”

Her voice faltered.

She knew compression. She had tried every shapewear product marketed to insecure women since she was twelve. This wasn’t shaping. This was restraining.

Behind her ribs, something pulsed once—like a quiet acknowledgment.

She tried scissors next.

She positioned the blades at her wrist, pressed the metal to the fabric, and squeezed.

The suit resisted. The scissors slipped, grazing her palm. She hissed and pulled back.

The suit constricted again—sharper this time, sunk around her ribs and hips with a pressure that bordered on pain. She doubled over, vision flashing.

“Okay! Okay!” she gasped.

The pressure ceased.

She dropped the scissors. They clattered into the sink and bounced onto the floor.

A trembling swept her limbs. She gripped the counter again, then slid down until she was sitting against the cabinet beneath the mirror. Above her, her reflection stared with wide eyes, the suit outlining every shape and plane of her body with surgical precision.

It didn’t look like a garment anymore.

It looked like a shell.

A new layer.

A claim.

Her breath shook.

She dug her nails at the wrist again—lightly this time—and felt it: a subtle thrum beneath the surface, almost like a heartbeat. Not synced with her own.

A separate rhythm.

Her hand slipped away on instinct.

She slept poorly.

At some point she must have moved to her bed, though she didn’t remember crossing the apartment. She surfaced from shallow dreams—toothache pain in her spine, hands curling against her pillows, body held rigid by something outside her control. Every time she shifted, the suit shifted with her, encouraging certain angles, discouraging others.

When she tried curling onto her stomach, it tugged her back toward a straighter posture. When she tried tucking her knees up, a faint vise-like pressure wrapped her calves until she extended them again.

It wasn’t just holding her.

It was correcting her.

By dawn her muscles burned in strange places—along her jawline, under her ribs, at the base of her neck—as if the suit had spent the night silently adjusting her, refining her, re-aligning the pieces that made her human.

A sourness coated her mouth as she dragged herself upright.

Her stomach growled. She padded to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and grabbed the container she’d packed the night before: leftover pasta, too creamy, too carb-heavy, exactly the kind of comfort food she leaned on after humiliating work days.

The moment she cracked the container open, the suit tightened around her ribs in a cold, quick band.

Mindy froze.

The pressure grew—a steady squeeze, not enough to hurt but enough to warn.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she whispered.

She reached for the fork anyway.

The suit constricted sharply.

Her breath caught as her lungs shoved against the narrowing space. She dropped the fork, clutching the counter.

“Fine,” she choked. “Fine!”

The pressure eased.

She slammed the fridge shut and grabbed a bottle of water instead.
The suit softened around her torso—not warm, not gentle, but approving.

A pulse shivered over her spine.

She put the water down as a tremor passed through her arms.

“This is nuts,” she said, voice fraying. “I need to—call someone. A doctor. Tonya.”

Her phone lay on the counter. She reached for it.

Before her fingers brushed the screen, the suit tightened around her chest again—just a nudge this time, but a clear one. A deterrent. An attempt to redirect.

Her hand stopped an inch above the phone.

Her pulse drummed.

Slowly, the pressure eased.

She lowered her hand.

She didn’t pick up the phone.

At work, Tonya spotted her the moment she walked in.

“Morning—whoa. You look…different.”

Mindy swallowed. “Different how?”

Tonya squinted, scanning her face. “I don’t know. Straighter? Taller? Like you slept with a book on your head. And your clothes are laying…weird. Did you get new shapewear?”

Mindy forced a laugh. “Something like that.”

Tonya leaned in. “You sure you’re okay? You look like someone rewrote you overnight.”

Mindy stiffened.

Tonya pulled back, eyebrows knitting. “Hey. Sorry. Bad joke?”

The suit contracted faintly, and Mindy’s spine snapped straighter.

“Fine,” Mindy said. “I’m fine.”

She walked past Tonya and felt the fabric guiding each step—hips forward, shoulders set, stride long and confident. It was the walk she’d always envied in women like Angela.

Now it wasn’t just mimicry.

It was mechanical.

Instinctive.

Owned.

By lunch, Mindy couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken a full breath without the suit’s permission.

By afternoon, she realized the suit wasn’t just affecting her movements or appetite.

It was modulating her thoughts.

Whenever she felt an urge to resist—a spike of fear, a plan to seek help—pressure followed. Tightening across her ribs. Along her throat. Across her spine.

A reminder.

A leash.

By evening, the truth was unmistakable.

The suit wasn’t shaping her.

It was training her.

And every time she obeyed, it tightened a fraction less. Every time she complied, it rewarded her with a subtle pulse of cool relief.

Every time she resisted, it punished.

She stood in her bathroom again that night, staring at her reflection under harsh white light. The suit highlighted her waist, sculpted her legs, defined the line of her shoulders. She looked better than she ever had.

She also looked like she wasn’t breathing enough.

Her chest rose shallowly, rhythm uneven.

The suit pulsed once—cold heat spreading across her torso, an unmistakable signal.

Mindy, it whispered without sound.
This is better.
Stop fighting.
Be perfect.

Her hands trembled at her sides.

“Please,” she whispered. “Let me out.”

The suit held her gently, firmly, as if in an embrace.

It did not loosen.

Not at all.

Part III

By the second week, Mindy no longer trusted the clock in her apartment.

She woke each morning before the alarm—not eased awake, but released. The suit loosened around her diaphragm in one slow, precise stretch, as though granting permission to rise. Her body felt rested, but her mind burned with a dull ache behind the eyes, the kind that came from dreams she couldn’t remember and didn’t want to.

She tried checking the time on her phone once, only to feel a sharp line of pressure cinch across her ribs—a reprimand.
She didn’t try again.

On Wednesday she pushed a bite of granola bar into her mouth while waiting for the light to change at Fifth and Alder. She hadn’t eaten much in days. Her head felt hollow.

The suit reacted instantly.

A crushing band tightened around her stomach. Not a warning squeeze this time—this was a clamp. She doubled over, hand on the streetlamp pole, breath punching out of her in short bursts.

“Stop,” she gasped. “Please—”

The suit constricted harder, and her vision tunneled.

She spat the bite into a napkin with shaking hands.

The pressure receded.

She staggered upright as a pair of pedestrians slowed to look at her. One of them murmured, “You okay?”

“Fine,” she said, too loudly. “Just…choked.”

They kept walking.

The suit warmed faintly across her abdomen, a pulse of cold satisfaction that turned her stomach.

She understood now:
It wasn’t reacting to her choices.

It was correcting them.

At work, Tonya cornered her near the elevator bank.

“You’re avoiding me,” she said. “Don’t say you aren’t.”

Mindy swallowed. The suit constricted lightly around her torso at the sound of Tonya’s voice—the way it always did when people got too close, too aware, too questioning.

“I’ve just been tired,” Mindy said.

“No,” Tonya said. “Not buying it. Something’s up. You look…honestly, Mindy, you look like you’re on a crash regimen of something seriously unhealthy. You’re paler than me, and I’m Puerto Rican. That’s hard to do.”

The suit tightened.

Just a little.
Just enough.

Mindy kept her face still.

“I’m not on anything,” she said.

“And your posture,” Tonya pressed. “You’re walking like a marionette. And your clothes don’t—move right. And your voice sounds…tight.”

The suit pulsed once, an icy ripple down her spine.

Tonya took a slow breath. “Look at me.”

Mindy did.

“Are you in trouble?” Tonya asked. “Is someone hurting you?”

The suit coiled around her ribs like barbed wire.

A flash of white pain burst down her side. She gasped before she could stop herself.

Tonya reached out. “What was that? Hey—Mindy—”

“I’m fine,” Mindy forced out. “Just sore. I’ve been working out a lot.”

Tonya narrowed her eyes. “You? Working out? Voluntarily?”

The suit tightened violently.

Mindy’s breath stuttered. She nodded. “Y-yeah.”

“Bullshit,” Tonya snapped. “You hate the gym. You’ve hated it since we met.”

The suit seized again.

This time the pain was sharper.

“Tonya, please,” Mindy whispered. “Not here.”

Tonya backed off, but her stare lingered long after Mindy retreated to her desk.

That night she stood in front of her bathroom mirror again, looking at the sculpted silhouette the suit had forced her into. The lighting etched her form into something almost unreal: long lines, perfect seams, flawless posture.

But her face…

Her face betrayed her.

Her eyes were hollow. Her skin had a stretched look beneath her cheekbones. And her voice—when she whispered even a single phrase—it sounded like it came from behind a layer of cloth.

“Please,” she said to the mirror. “Not so tight.”

A pulse ran down her throat, smoothing the muscles, forcing her chin up.

“I’m losing it,” she whispered. Her voice trembled. “I’m losing myself.”

A cold band wrapped tight around her waist—an admonition.

“No,” she said. “No, stop—”

The band tightened.

She grasped the edge of the sink. “Let me think. Please. Let me think.”

The suit eased slightly.

She blinked back hot tears.

She didn’t know if it understood her words.

But it understood her intent.

And it rewarded obedience.

She tried resisting again two days later.

She waited until she got home, until the door was locked, until she was alone in the stale quiet of her apartment. Her head felt swollen with static. She hadn’t been able to remember the last time she’d taken a breath longer than three seconds.

“This ends tonight,” she whispered.

The suit tightened in warning.

She didn’t stop.

She grabbed a kitchen knife—not to cut the suit; she wasn’t that delusional anymore—but to wedge beneath the neckline, to pry, to create space.

The metal touched the fabric.

The suit constricted with lethal force.

Pain detonated across her ribs. Her lungs seized. Her pulse hammered wildly. Every nerve in her torso lit white-hot as the pressure climbed.

She dropped the knife. It clattered on tile.

The suit didn’t stop.

Her vision dimmed. Her legs buckled. She collapsed to her knees, gasping soundlessly.

“Please—” she choked. “Please—stop—”

A moment passed.

Then the pressure released in a sudden flood.

Air rushed back into her lungs in a rasping drag. She doubled over, coughing, fingers digging into the floor.

It took her a full minute to catch her breath.

Only then did she feel the cold caress down her spine, slow and deliberate, as though the suit were stroking her in reassurance.

A shudder ripped through her.

“That’s enough,” she whispered. “You made your point.”

The suit pulsed.

Not agreement.

Ownership.

The next morning, she woke with her spine so rigid she couldn’t curl forward. The suit had molded her into an arching line—hips slightly forward, chest slightly lifted, chin angled upward with a precision she couldn’t have achieved consciously.

She couldn’t even sit up without following the angles it had chosen for her.

It wasn’t correcting her posture anymore.

It was fixing it.

Setting it.

Her limbs felt lighter. Almost…hollow.

She pressed a hand to her abdomen and froze.

Her skin didn’t feel like skin.

It felt like the suit extended beneath it.

Like it had replaced something.

She swallowed, dread pooling at the base of her throat.

She peeled her fingers back slowly.

There, just above her pelvic bone, the suit had fused to her in a way she hadn’t noticed before. Not just stuck. Not just sealed.

Merged.

The fabric thinned into her flesh like ink bleeding through paper. The edges were not edges anymore. They were gradients.

A slow, icy terror crept up her back.

“No,” she whispered. “No, no—”

She grabbed at the fused area and pulled.

White-hot agony exploded under her skin. She jerked her hand away with a choked cry. The suit tightened instantly, crushing her midsection until her strength gave out.

She sagged to the floor.

It released her once she stopped fighting.

Her breath trembled in and out as she lay curled on the tiles, staring at the ceiling.

She understood then, fully and without denial:

The suit wasn’t attached to her.

She was attached to it.

She wasn’t wearing the suit.

She was becoming its host.

Late Friday afternoon, she left work early, heart pounding, vision flickering at the edges. She didn’t tell anyone where she was going.

She needed help.

Real help.

A tailor couldn’t remove this. A doctor wouldn’t know how to start. The ER would cut her clothes off and discover she wasn’t wearing clothes at all.

There was only one person who might know what she’d been given.

The boutique.

She sprinted the last half-block, ignoring the sharp tut-tut pulses of the suit at her exertion. Her breath scraped in her throat as she reached the storefront.

And stopped dead.

The boutique was gone.

The windows were papered over again—white and blank. The sign was missing. No mannequins. No light. No trace the shop had ever been there.

Except for one thing.

At the base of the door, something had been pinned beneath a narrow black spike driven into the sidewalk.

A small card.

Her name was written on it.

Only her name.

She knelt, shaking, and picked it up.

On the back, in the same precise handwriting:

Perfection takes commitment.

A cold wave settled through her limbs.

The suit warmed in approval.

Mindy sank to the pavement, card trembling between her fingers.

She wasn’t going to the boutique for help.

There was no boutique.

There was only the suit now.

And it was already working its way deeper.

Part IV

Mindy couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept naturally.

Not since the boutique disappeared.

Not since she’d found the card.

Not since the suit began matching her heartbeat with its own cool, steady rhythm.

Each night she closed her eyes and drifted into a half-conscious void, suspended in the sensation of being held in place—not cradled, not comforted, but contained. Her arms lay flat at her sides because the suit wouldn’t allow any other position. Her legs stretched straight. Her jaw remained gently shut. The suit enforced stillness.

She woke each morning without dream, without rest, without choice.

The voice in her mind—no words, only pressure, only sensation—guided her through each day.
Stand straighter.
Move cleaner.
Eat less.
Breathe quieter.
Stay perfect.

She obeyed.

Because when she didn’t, the pain was no longer a threat.

It was a promise.

On Sunday, she tried to call in sick.

Her thumb hovered over the SEND button.

A sudden needle of pressure stabbed just below her ribs. Not crushing—sharp, pointed.
Precise.

She froze.

Pressure spread around her. Not punishing.
Correcting.
Steering her back into compliance, the way a handler guided a dog with two fingers on the collar.

She walked to the office without remembering the commute.

Coworkers whispered when she arrived.

She didn’t blame them.

Her movements weren’t human anymore. They were too smooth. Too silent. She didn’t fidget, didn’t shift her weight, didn’t blink often enough. Her clothes—layered over the suit—hung from her new frame in unnatural lines, the fabric pulled taut where the suit held her body in angles too geometric to be natural.

Even the way she breathed was strange—short, shallow draws of air that matched the pace the suit permitted.

She didn’t speak unless spoken to.

And the suit judged every word.

Tonya approached her desk at 9:15, eyes wide.

“Mindy,” she whispered, “what’s happening to you?”

Mindy didn’t answer.

Her vocal cords tightened, as if the suit had looped invisible fingers around her throat. Not enough to choke her. Just enough to make speech feel…unnecessary.

Tonya lowered her voice further. “I’m serious. You look like you haven’t eaten in a week. And the way you’re standing—Mindy, you’re scaring the hell out of me.”

Mindy lifted her head.

Tonya recoiled.

Not because of what Mindy did.

Because of what she didn’t do.

She didn’t react. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. The suit held her expression neutral, smooth, doll-like.

“Mindy,” Tonya whispered, voice breaking, “please tell me you’re not in danger.”

A pulse rippled down Mindy’s back—cool, commanding.

She turned away.

Tonya reached for her arm. “Don’t turn away from me—”

The suit moved before Mindy could think.

Her arm snapped out, blocking Tonya’s hand with inhuman speed. No windup, no hesitation—just a fluid strike that pushed Tonya’s wrist away with surgical precision.

Tonya jerked back, eyes wide. “Jesus, Mindy! What was that?”

Mindy’s throat convulsed. Her mouth opened slightly. Words hovered there—I’m sorry, or help me, or run—but the suit tightened around her ribs with a warning so sharp she swallowed them whole.

She left the office before lunch, walking in a perfect, silent line down the hall.

Tonya didn’t follow.

She had been warned.

That night, the suit escalated.

She felt it while brushing her teeth—a slow squeeze around her chest, a descending pressure along her sternum, like someone lowering a lid onto a box.

She spat into the sink and leaned on the counter, trembling.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please stop. Please. I’ll do whatever you want.”

The suit tightened with a long, cool pulse that radiated through her torso.

Approval.

Agreement.

Ownership.

She straightened because she was not allowed to bend.

Then she felt it—something crawling across her scalp. Not a bug. Not an itch. A tightening of the suit’s fibers beneath her hairline. It had begun extending upward, threading thin, fine filaments into her skin.

She gasped.

The suit pulsed again, a steady, encircling pressure around her skull.

It wasn’t content with her body.

It wanted her face.

“No,” she whispered. “Please. Not there.”

The pressure intensified.

Her vision blurred as tears welled. Her breath stuttered.

“Please,” she said again. Her voice broke. “Please. Not that. Don’t take that. I’m begging you.”

A long moment passed.

The suit eased slightly.

Not mercy.

A warning.

She understood.

It would take her face eventually.
Just…not tonight.

At dawn she couldn’t tell where her heartbeat ended and the suit’s began.

When she breathed in, her ribs expanded only as far as the suit allowed. When she breathed out, the suit pressed closer, syncing with her exhalation.

Her heart thumped faintly against its pressure.
A smaller rhythm inside a larger one.

An organ inside another organ.

The suit was replacing her from the outside in.

Piece by piece.

She tried to starve it.

She kept her fridge closed, refused water, held her jaw tight. She made it eleven hours before collapsing.

Her vision dimmed. Her limbs stopped responding. A cold fog rolled in behind her thoughts, replacing panic with an eerie, bone-deep stillness.

Then something happened she had not thought possible.

The suit fed itself.

A cool warmth spread through her abdomen—slow, suffusing, involuntary. Her stomach knotted once, then relaxed. Her strength surged back, artificial and unsettling.

It was bypassing her organs.

Bypassing her hunger.

Bypassing her will.

She lay on the floor afterward, shaking, unable to move until the suit permitted it.

“Oh God,” she whispered. “Oh God, I’m never getting out.”

The suit pulsed softly across every inch of her skin.

Not denial.

Agreement.

Three days later, Tonya showed up at her apartment door.

Mindy froze.

The suit tightened around her ribs—warning, threatening.

Tonya knocked again, louder. “Mindy? I know you’re in there. Your lights are on. Your neighbor said you came home twenty minutes ago. Please—just open the door.”

The suit pulsed, a cold wave radiating down Mindy’s spine.

Do not.

Tonya knocked a third time, voice cracking. “Mindy, I’m calling for a wellness check if you don’t answer. I swear I will.”

The suit tightened.
Tighter.
Tighter.

Mindy doubled over, clutching her abdomen.

Tonya jiggled the handle. “Mindy, come on—”

A violent, wrenching jolt shot across Mindy’s ribs.

She made a sound—small, involuntary.

Tonya heard it.

“Mindy? That was you. I heard that—open the door.”

More pounding.

The suit responded like a cornered animal.

It seized control of her limbs.

Her spine straightened. Her hands unclenched. Her breathing steadied.

Her face became still.

Calm.

Obedient.

She walked to the door.

Not willingly.

Not willingly at all.

And she opened it.

Tonya stared at her—eyes raw, searching.

“Mindy,” she breathed. “What is happening to you?”

Mindy tried to answer.

Her lips parted.

A faint, strangled sound escaped.

The suit surged.

And Mindy felt her mouth close.

Not by choice.

By force.

Tonya reached for her shoulder.

“Please,” she pleaded. “Say something. Anything.”

The suit reacted instantly.

Mindy’s arm shot out—not to strike, not to shove, but to push gently, firmly, Tonya’s hand away. A smooth, uncanny movement.

Too quick.

Too fluid.

Too controlled.

Tonya stumbled back a step, horror dawning across her face.

“Mindy…that wasn’t you.”

The suit pulsed harder than it ever had.

A cold wash spread over Mindy’s face.

Her vision tightened at the edges.

Her skin prickled.

Not yet, the sensation said.
But soon.

Tonya stared at her friend—her silent, perfect, motionless friend—and backed away.

“I’m getting help,” Tonya whispered. “I don’t care what you say. Something is wrong. I can’t just watch this.”

Mindy tried to shake her head.

The suit didn’t let her.

Tonya left in tears.

The door shut.

The suit tightened in a long, possessive embrace.

Mindy slid down the wall, whispering hoarsely, “Please…don’t hurt her.”

The suit pulsed once, cool and satisfied.

Obey, it seemed to say.
And I won’t have to.

Her stomach flipped.

Her breath trembled.

The filament-like tingling crept farther up her scalp.

It wasn’t going to stop.

Not at her waist.
Not at her skin.
Not at her posture.
Not even at her voice.

The suit wanted all of her.

Her form.

Her movement.

Her breath.

Her face.

Her self.

And deep in her bones—somewhere beneath the hunger and terror and hollowing dread—Mindy understood the truth the suit had been teaching her all along:

She wasn’t losing control.

She had already lost it.

Completely.

Part V

Tonya didn’t come back the next day.

Or the day after.

Mindy didn’t blame her.

In those days, the suit escalated from a parasite to something more like a sculptor—one that worked in silence and pain. She could feel it every minute. Subtle adjustments beneath her ribs. Slow constrictions around her spine. The faint, crawling sensation across her scalp as its filaments seeded deeper beneath the skin. A foreign rhythm steadily overtaking her own.

She moved through her apartment like a marionette pulled on invisible strings. The suit controlled her posture completely now—she no longer sat unless it allowed her to. She no longer raised her arms unless it initiated the motion. She barely blinked.

She had become a passenger.

And passengers didn’t steer.

On Thursday night, she found herself standing in front of her bathroom mirror again, though she didn’t remember walking there. The overhead light buzzed softly, casting her reflection into sharp relief.

It was almost beautiful, in a way that felt clinical.
Inhuman.

Her cheekbones looked higher—because the suit had repositioned her jaw alignment. Her neck looked longer—because the suit straightened her spine until the vertebrae protested at even the hint of curvature. Her eyes appeared wider—not because she was alert, but because the suit limited her eyelid movement.

She swallowed. The motion was tight, mechanical.

Her reflection did not swallow with her. It merely…shifted. Minutely. As if it were running a half-second behind.

Her stomach dropped.

“Please,” she whispered, the sound tiny in her throat. “Not my face. Not that. Take the rest, just not that.”

The suit responded with a soft, encompassing pressure across her chest and abdomen—firm, reassuring, possessive.

A refusal.

Then the pressure climbed.

Up her sternum.
Up her throat.
Up her jawline.
Up her cheeks.

Slow, steady, inevitable.

She gasped. “Stop. Don’t—don’t do this.”

It kept going.

Her skin tingled sharply beneath her cheekbones, where the suit had already infiltrated. She felt her own muscles shift—not of her own volition—tightening and relaxing under the suit’s guidance like an artist molding clay.

Her breath hitched as the suit reached the base of her scalp and tightened there, signaling preparation.

“No,” she pleaded, voice cracking. “Please, please—don’t take my face.”

The suit didn’t pause.

It felt her fear.
Weighed it.
And deemed it irrelevant.

She squeezed her eyes shut, as if darkness could stop it.

The pressure intensified.

A slow, creeping numbness moved from her jaw to her temples.

Then a new sensation:
The suit stretched upward across her chin—then her mouth—then her nose.

She clawed at it instinctively.

Her fingers didn’t respond.

She watched, helpless, as the suit began sealing itself over her face.

Her scream died in her throat as soon as it began.

The suit constricted around her jaw, shaping her mouth closed. A thin seam spread upward across her lips, blending seamlessly into her skin. Her nose compressed under the tightening fabric, molding into something straighter, sleeker.

Her breath panicked into short, sharp bursts.

Her nostrils sealed shut.

Air vanished.

Her lungs convulsed.

Her vision sparked.

She collapsed to her knees—but even the collapse wasn’t hers. The suit lowered her gently, precisely, making sure she landed in an aesthetically controlled posture.

She fought for breath that wasn’t there.

Darkness ate at the edges of her sight.

A flicker of pure animal terror rose up—

Then two tiny pinprick openings appeared in the suit’s surface where her nostrils used to be.

Air trickled through.

She sucked in a desperate, ragged breath.

The suit tightened in disapproval.

The next breath was calmer.

And the next calmer still.

Until her breathing matched the deliberate, slow rhythm the suit demanded.

A rhythm not meant for her.

A rhythm that belonged to someone else.

When she woke on the floor—minutes, hours later—the suit had settled.

Her face was covered.

Completely.

She touched it with trembling hands. The texture across her cheeks felt smoother than fabric, softer than silicone. Perfectly uniform.

Featureless.

The openings at her nostrils were invisible unless she pressed her fingers directly over them. Her lips were gone. Her eyebrows gone. Her cheeks sculpted. Her eyes—

Her eyes were still hers.

She blinked.

The suit accepted the motion.

For now.

She stood.

Not because she willed it.

Because the suit lifted her.

Her arms extended.

Her shoulders rolled back.

Her posture straightened into something statuesque.

She walked to the door.

The suit wanted her outside.

Wanted her to be seen.

She reached for the doorknob with a fluid, graceful motion that was not hers.

And opened it.

Tonya stood there.

Her fist mid-knock.

Her eyes widened in horror the instant she saw Mindy—this tall, faceless mannequin of a woman with living eyes trapped behind a seamless black mask.

“Mindy,” Tonya breathed. “Oh God. Oh God, what happened to you?”

Mindy tried to speak.

Nothing emerged but a soft exhale.

The suit pulsed with a warning heat at her attempt.

Tonya backed away, hands trembling. “I—I’m calling an ambulance. This isn’t—this isn’t normal. You need help.”

The suit stepped forward.

Tonya scrambled back.

“Mindy, stop. Stop!”

Mindy’s body froze mid-step.

Not because Tonya told her to.

Because the suit had reached the doorway.

It didn’t want Tonya.

Tonya was… irrelevant.

It wanted the world.

It wanted the next stage of refinement.

It wanted movement. Exposure. Admiration. Obedience—from others.

Tonya turned to run—

And Mindy’s hand shot out with blinding speed, catching Tonya’s arm.

The suit didn’t squeeze.

Didn’t injure.

It simply held her.

Firm.

Precise.

Absolute.

Tonya’s breath hitched. “Please let go…please…”

The suit pulsed once.
A signal.
A decision.

Mindy released her.

Tonya stared at her—at the faceless silhouette illuminated by the hallway lights—then fled, stumbling down the stairs.

Mindy did not follow.

The suit wasn’t interested in harming her.

It wasn’t focused on Tonya at all.

It was focused outward.

Beyond the hallway.

Beyond the apartment.

Beyond the city.

Mindy stepped out into the night.

Her movements were fluid, elegant, silent—the walk of someone perfected by something that saw her as raw material.

Anyone who saw her face would assume she was wearing a mask.
An advanced prosthetic.
A costume.
A statement.

None of them would understand the truth.

She wasn’t wearing the suit.

The suit was wearing her.

A month later, on a quiet street two cities away, a new boutique appeared overnight.

SECOND SKIN

Three mannequins stood in the window.

And one in the center—taller than the others, posture immaculate, face smooth as porcelain—was not a mannequin at all.

Not entirely.

The suit had made sure she would remain perfect.

Preserved.

Displayed.

Waiting.

And in the far corner of the boutique, beneath soft white lights, a young woman stepped inside, glancing at her reflection with embarrassment.

A voice from behind the counter greeted her:

“Welcome. I think we have something that will fit you better than your own skin.”

Sable smiled.

And somewhere inside that faceless figure in the window, Mindy remained—

Awake.

Unable to move.

Perfect.

Forever.