Toxic - Zoe Blake Page 0,46

as I waited for them to unlace the bodice from the dress form.

“Maxine. You have a phone call. It’s Eugenia. She says the dress is all the wrong color. She wanted lipstick red, not crimson red.”

Maxine rolled her eyes. “Try on the bodice, Elizabeth. I will return.”

The lounge felt strangely tense and awkward the moment Maxine left.

“Arms up,” demanded the blonde.

“Sure. I’m Lizzie, by the way.”

She didn’t respond.

So much for breaking the tension.

She wrapped the bodice around my front and pulled it tight.

“Wait! Something’s wrong!” I exclaimed as I pulled at the bodice. “I think a few pins are sticking me.”

The blonde continued to pull roughly on the laces of the corset-style bodice, pulling it tighter and tighter.

“Stop! Something’s wrong!”

I could feel hundreds of pinpricks piercing my skin.

I tried to wrench away but felt a kick to the backs of my knees. I crashed to the floor. The blonde placed her knee on my lower back and used her body weight to pull the corset laces even tighter.

I could feel the familiar tugs and pulls of her knotting off the laces, trapping me inside the extremely tight corset as pins dug deep into my flesh.

Using all my strength, I inhaled as much as I could with her weight on my body and the tight clasp of the bodice around my ribs and screamed, “Help!”

“Elizabeth?”

It was Richard calling out to me from somewhere in the workshop’s front.

The weight of the blonde lifted off my body.

“Richard! Richard! Help!” I cried.

A moment later, Richard appeared in the lounge’s doorway with Maxine right behind him.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” he roared as I struggled to rise to my knees.

As I desperately grasped at the bodice, small coppery red stains appeared as blood from the pinpricks soaked through the expensive silk.

Richard’s face hardened in rage when he saw the blood. Racing to my side, he knelt on the floor next to me and started pulling at the laces, trying to loosen them.

I shook my head, only having enough breath to choke out one word. “Knotted.”

By now my security detail as well as several other employees from the shop had gathered in the lounge to stare in horror at the strange spectacle.

Richard furiously looked around. Spying my champagne glass, he grabbed it by the stem and smashed it against the table. “Hold still, baby.”

Wrapping his arm around my shoulders to keep me as still as possible, he used the sharp broken edge of the champagne flute to slice through the corset laces. Immediately, the tight corset loosened and I could breathe.

Clawing at the bloodstained silk, I pulled the offending garment away from my body but Richard placed his large warm hands over mine, stopping me.

“Everybody out!” he demanded. Nodding to Maxine, he said, “Soak some cloths in warm water and get me something to use as a blanket.”

Maxine’s bright red lipstick looked like a macabre slash across her overly pale face. Her usually chatty demeanor gone, all she could do was nod and turn to do his bidding.

Clasping my tearstained cheeks, Richard captured my gaze. “Baby, I want you to keep your hands at your sides and let me do this, okay?”

Pressing my lips together to keep from crying, I nodded my head.

His hands looked enormous and almost menacing against the delicate cream silk, but his touch could not have been gentler. Reaching around my torso, he carefully pulled open the two halves of the corset. I cried out as one by one the pins were pulled out.

“Shh… I know, baby. I know. This is almost over,” he murmured in my ear as he continued to pull the fabric away from my body.

Once the bodice was released from my back and sides, he paused. We both knew the pins were dug in the deepest in my front and over my breasts.

Looking down, I began to whimper, knowing it would hurt.

“Look at me,” demanded Richard.

His dark blue eyes caught my gaze.

I felt a tug on the fabric and looked down to see small bloody pinpricks across my breasts.

“Eyes on me, baby girl.”

Never able to resist his command, I obeyed, drawing strength from him as he finally pulled the horrible garment off of me.

Richard unleashed a vicious string of curses under his breath. Looking down, I could see why. Someone had placed hundreds of pins sticking straight out on the side of the fabric that would be against the skin. When you looked on the other side, all the pin tops were carefully hidden among