Special Delivery
By Czolgolz
[email protected]
copyright 2000


Tami sat sullenly on her bed, reading and rereading the letter.  Another damn Christmas, another holiday spent alone.  December, in her opinion, was the most depressing time of the year.  True, if you lived the Norman Rockwell life, with family, turkey, and all that crap, it might be jolly.  But, thought Tami, if you were a single girl in her early thirties, with a dead mother and a dad who didn’t care if you were alive or dead, Xmas pretty well sucked.  No siblings, and while she had friends, it would have been intrusive to try to spend the holidays with them.

There was one guy whom she’d have liked to spend Christmas with.  It was his letter she was holding.  His name was Abe, and she had met him in the chat room
‘ididntseetitanic.’  She had been instantly attracted to him and his offbeat charm.  And of course, typical of her track record with men, he lived on the other side of the country.

Tami tossed down his latest letter and looked at herself in the mirror.  She supposed she was average looking, with her mop of curly red hair, freckles, and her big-boned frame.  It’s not like she couldn’t meet a guy, she got asked out enough.  It was just that none of the guys measured up to the Prince Charming she had devised in her mind.  Well, one guy did, but he lived thousands of miles away.

Her logical side told her to forget about living in the clouds and to settle for a local guy.  But her secret romantic side told her to hold out for the rockets in the sky, movie-like love.  Abe was the only guy who ever made her feel like that.

Of course, it was easy to feel like that over a guy she had never actually seen in person.  Despite their chatting, letters, and phone calls, she had never looked him in the eye.  They wanted to meet, but unfortunately he could not take enough time off of work until March.  He planned to fly down then.

Tami put his letter away.  Well, enough fantasizing.  There was one thing she could do for Abe this year and it was to get him a gift he’d never forget.  She had anguished for hours about what he’d like.  Clothes were too impersonal, as were books.  What could she get him that would tell him how much she wanted to be with him, but at the same time be original?

It had occurred to her during the first Christmas sale of the year, back in September.  Abe had mentioned how he fantasized about waking up Christmas morning and finder her neatly wrapped under his tree.  Well, she couldn’t afford to fly down and see him, (plus he was enjoying a family holiday anyway), but she could help his fantasy to come true, at least figuratively.  She would send him a glamor photo of herself.  But not just any photo.  A life-sized photo.  One that he could sit beside him as he talked on the phone to Tami and maybe imagine really was her.

She had debated what she would wear for the photo.  Finally, deciding that Abe had desires just like any other guy, opted for a Santa hat, Christmas stockings, a sprig of holly in her hair, and a tiny bikini.  She normally didn’t feel comfortable wearing a bikini, but she felt secure enough around Abe to do so.  She’d tape wrapping paper to the image and allow Abe his other fantasy: ‘unwrapping’ Tami.

She had just gotten home from the photo shoot; in fact she was still in costume.  Somehow she couldn’t get motivated to go to her job at the Walmart that night.  Instead, she put off getting dressed and waited for the photographer to deliver the completed photo.  It was the last day before everything closed for the Christmas holiday, and she hoped they’d hurry (she’d spent quite a bit on the photo and same day service).  Then she could send her gift off to Abe and wish that it were her who was going to see him instead of some two-dimensional cutout.

Tami was interrupted from her thoughts by the entrance of her roommate, Angie.  Angie was leaving to spend the holidays with her family.  In the meantime she was finishing work at the antique warehouse where she was employed.  

Angie was wheeling a strange device into the apartment.  It was a box about the size of a photocopier, but on spindly legs that terminated in wheels.  In its front was a set of rollers, and on its side was a huge crank.

“What the heck is that thing?” asked Tami as she helped Angie wheel it in.

“Not a clue.  I think it’s one of those old wringer washers.”

“Looks a little modern for that.”

“Who knows?  Some customer ordered it and then never claimed it.  The boss was going to scrap it, but I thought it might back a cute TV stand or something.  Anyway, I’m on break, I got to get back.”

“OK.  Listen Angie, I’ll be heading off to work just before you get home.  Do me a favor, if someone comes delivering a photo for me, could you fold it up and slip in into that envelope?  Just drop it into a box, the postage is already on it."

“Sure.  Hey, listen Tami, don’t stay here by yourself.  Come spend Christmas with my family, we’d love to have you.”

It was a tempting offer, but Tami declined.  Angie’s younger brother was just getting home from basic training and her sister was presenting her baby daughter to the family for the first time.  Tami felt she would have been in the way.

Angie hugged Tami.  “If I don’t see you before I leave, have a merry Christmas.”

Tami sat alone in the apartment, watching the clock tick and dreading the onslaught of holiday customers.  It was going to be hell.  Just before she motivated herself to get into some clothes, the overhead light bulb burned out with a pop.  After getting a new bulb from the closet she stood on a chair an attempted to change it.  As usual, she was too short (she was not five feet tall).  She glanced around the apartment for anything taller.  As fate would have it, her eye settled on the wringer.

Moving it over to the chair, she tested her weight on the top of it.  The top buckled unstably.  She realized that the top was hinged.  She flipped it open and stood inside the hollow box.  She cursed.  Still too short.

She was about to climb out and try to find something taller when she slipped.  She dropped the bulb, and doubling over she grabbed the edge of the wringer to steady herself.  Her hand brushed against a button on the front of the machine.  Instantly, a slight humming sound emanated from the strange device.  Tami toppled backwards, rear first, and ended up sitting on her butt inside the box.

Her curiosity overcame her annoyance.  How could this box be making noise?  It wasn’t plugged into anything.  She tried to stand up to investigate, but her feet seemed strangely immobile.  She looked into the box to see the source of the problem and screamed.

The humming was caused by the rollers in front turning.  But what made her scream was the fact that her feet were caught in the rollers.  And there was no room for her feet between the rollers.  They were flush with each other; her feet couldn’t fit into such a small space.  To her horror she realized that she was slowly being pulled towards where her feet had disappeared.

Tami grasped the sides of the box in a futile attempt to stop her progress.  Her feet must have been mutilated, mangled.  They might even have been severed, she couldn’t even feel them now.  It was funny that she felt no pain, but she had read somewhere that sometimes victims of severe accidents feel nothing.

Well, she’d never feel anything again unless she got untangled from the rollers and called 911 soon.  She was already up to her knees.  A panicked tear rolled down her cheek as she realized she’d probably never walk again.

Pulling on the sides of the box did nothing to stop her, and pressing the buttons had no effect.  The tears flowed freely, she was convinced she was at death’s door.  It was then that she saw the refection out of the corner of her eye.

It was in Angie’s full-length wall mirror on her bedroom door.  The image, at first glance, showed nothing unusual.  Just Tami, half naked and desperate, futilely trying to escape from the box.  The two objects that protruded from the front of the box weren’t that unusual either, per se.  Just a couple of Christmas stockings that seemed to have been ironed extra flat.  But how could that be, she thought in her panic.  There should be blood and bone splinters, not just plain old stockings.  Where were her feet?  By the time she had been pulled in up to her thighs, she had her answer.

The stockings didn’t terminate at their tops.  There was something more.  Two freckled calves, flattened thinner than paper, protruded out of the stocking tops.  The left one had a familiar looking scar on it, identical to the one Tami had received in a gym accident in high school.  They legs were limp and lifeless, but at the same time they were far too real looking to be a photo.

I’m hallucinating, thought Tami.  This isn’t possible.  Those can’t be my legs.  My legs should be severed by now.  They should be broken into a thousand pieces.  They shouldn’t be…simply flat like that!  That only happens in the cartoons.

Tami checked her progress from inside the machine.  Her bikini bottoms were about to be squashed, she had to pull on the front of the wringer just to stay upright.  The legs sticking from the front of the machine were completely out, and Tami sobbed harder when she realized she could still feel the cold air on her legs.  She just no longer had any power of movement.

‘This isn’t happening,’ thought Tami as her navel vanished.  ‘I’m going to wake up and this will all be a dream.’  She tried to wake herself up, but nothing happened.  She grabbed at her side in an attempt to arrest her flattening, but that turned out to be a mistake.  Her hand caught in the rollers.  She saw it as it came out the other side, pressed against her almost bare hip.

Tami could barely see her reflection as it poured out from between the rollers.  The impossibility of it all!  She knew many major organs must be crushed, but she felt fine, other than being immobile below the ribs.  What would become of her?  What kind of life would she have now, assuming she survived?  She’d be a cardboard cutout, a poster, a living doll!  Would she have to spend eternity taped to a wall somewhere?

Her mind reeled.  Well, she was dressed for the part, maybe some horny college guy would like to hang her in his dorm.  Or perhaps Angie could use her for advertising:  ‘McBain’s Antiques has rates that leave the competition flat!’  or maybe ‘Feeling crushed by holiday spending?  Check out McBain’s low prices!’   She pictured herself in the store window with the word bubble above her immobile head.  The only problem was her Christmas attire.  She’d probably end up in a drawer for most of the year.

Tami’s bikini top appeared on the other side of the rollers, her chest no thicker than the rest of her body.  Tami felt a sort of euphoria, which is not uncommon for people in crisis situations.  She began to think of other jobs she could do.  For instance, she’d make an excellent security guard, now that no one would mistake her for a person again.  Or she could test out irons!  ‘Sorry, it smoothed me out, but the creases are uneven.’  Hell, she could trouble-shoot laundry mats, from every stage from the washing to the folding.
 
Tami felt her shoulders enter the wringer.  Maybe she could advertise weight-loss programs: ‘I lost 120 lbs. in five minutes!  I went from a size six to a size zero, ask me how!’

She was gone up to her chin.  She tried to say something, but her vocal chords no longer worked.  No bother, she thought in her petrified giddiness.  Maybe Angie could use her to win some lawsuit:  ‘One of your steamroller drivers ran over my friend and now look at her!  One million dollars please.’

Tami smiled, just as her mouth disappeared.  She could no longer see her reflection; she didn’t realize that a grin was now the only facial expression she could manage.

Well, even if none of the careers she had picked for herself, Angie could always use her for chores around the house.  She could be a tablecloth, a dust cover, a wash rag, a towel, a bed sheet…

Tami’s head vanished.  Her left arm, still in the machine, grappled with the sides of the box, then followed the rest of her body through the rollers.  Flattened Tami lay in an immobile mass on the living room floor.  The Wringer immediately stopped humming.
***
Angie arrived at home just after Tami was scheduled to start work.  As she took off her coat, she noticed something on the floor in front of the wringer.  She picked it up and smiled.  It must have been the photo Tami was going to mail to her cyber-boyfriend.  It was kind of sweet:  Tami’s smiling face, wide eyes, one hand on her hip, the other raised in the air (not unlike one of those women you see at auto shows).  The skimpy bikini was a good idea; Angie was sure Abe would appreciate the erotic touch.  She was amazed at how well the photo had turned out.  You’d almost swear that you weren’t looking at a photo.  Angie wondered how the studio had captured both sides of Tami’s images and melded them together so seamlessly.

Remembering her promise, Angie gently folded the Tami-image and slid it into the preaddressed envelope.  Perhaps it was fate that Angie didn’t remove her gloves before stuffing it into the envelope.  If she had she might have noticed how the image felt almost nothing like a photograph.  In fact, had she been able to feel it at all, its strikingly similar texture to skin would have made her wonder.  As it were, Angie dropped the envelope off at the post office and never gave it another thought until she returned from vacation a week later.

***
Abe sat alone at his dining room table Christmas Eve.  “This,” he said to himself between shots of Jim Beam, “is the worst Christmas ever.”  Abe had come from a loving family and Christmas was usually the happiest time of the year.  But not this one.  A freakishly powerful storm had shut down the local airport indefinitely.  So while the rest of his family enjoyed a turkey dinner, he sat alone, miserable and lonely.  True, he’d see the family just as soon as the snow cleared, but what of it?  He had never spent Christmas alone and, despite his cheerful tone when he had called his parents earlier, he had never been so depressed.

Well on his way to horizontally drunk, Abe reflected.  Why was he alone?  Not just alone from his family, but alone in the world.  If he had a wife he wouldn’t be in this situation.  He wouldn’t be alone, he’d have someone to share the holidays with, storm or not.  Why couldn’t he find a woman?

The answer, he thought, was because he had never me the right woman.  At least until this year.  More and more, when he envisioned the future, he had a pretty, curly-haired redhead at his side.  He was finding it harder and harder to get her out of his mind.

Was that insane? he wondered.  Falling in love with a girl he had never met in person?  Well, stranger things have happened.  What he had planned for their scheduled meeting in March certainly was out of the ordinary.

Abe poured himself another shot, only to realize the bottle was now empty.  Well, there was one thing he could look forward to on this supposedly happy night.  It was the only present under his tiny Christmas tree.  He had told himself that he’d unwrap it on Christmas morning, but he couldn’t wait.  With unsteady hands, he tore open Tami’s envelope.
***
The Tami-image lay spread over Abe’s easy chair.  He was staring at it as he had been for the past hour.  He was fascinated.  He knew Tami was pretty from the pictures she had sent him, but this…wow!  Her muscular legs, gorgeous smile, freckled-face, and ample breasts stood out in living color.

Abe lay back in the couch opposite the flattened image.  Abe was a talkative drunk and ‘Tami’ was the only listener available.

“Tami honey, you made my dreams come true.  I’d fantasized about finding you under my tree, and here you are.  God, you look gorgeous.”

Abe suddenly felt stupid.  Here he was talking to a photo like it was a real person.  He must have been going nuts with loneliness.  Still, talking kind of made it feel like he really was sitting there with Tami.  And the image seemed to be watching him and listening intently…he must have been really drunk.


“Tami, I’m glad you made it.  You’ve filled a gap in my life.  I was half a man until I met you.  I love you.  I know this is our first time together, but who cares?  I know you are right for me.  I know I can make you happy.”

Unsteadily, Abe got down on one knee.  He then pulled something out of a drawer in his coffee table.  It was a small box.  He opened it and displayed the engagement ring to the image.  “I know this is sudden.  I had planned to wait until March, but since you are here now, I just had to ask:  ‘Will you marry me and make me the happiest man in the world?’”

The image, of course, made no reply.  Feeling like a jackass, Abe sat down the ring and laid his head in the photo’s ‘lap.’  “God, I’m pathetic.  God, I’m lonely.  God, I wish this really was you Tami.  I wish this flattened image was you.  Too bad you didn’t have a friend run you over with a steamroller and then mail you to me.  We’d have such a great Christmas together.”  Abe laughed at the mental image of Christmas Eve with a flattened Tami.  It would probably be identical to the one he was having now.

“Merry X-mas, my love,” said Abe and then kissed the image on its eternally smiling lips.  Then he kissed it again.  He was surprised at how soft it was.  Had he not been drunk he would have realized that the image felt almost eerily like a woman’s skin.

Abe picked up the Tami picture and hugged it close to him.  He ran his hand down its freckled back and felt his own stomach through the flimsy material the image was made of.  But then something stopped him.  Its back wasn’t totally flat.  Something under the shoulder blade made a bump.  He quickly realized that it was the bikini strap.  He was startled, he had been sure that the bikini was part of the photo, but apparently it was separate.  He quickly removed it.  The panties went the same way.

The sight of Tami’s large, pink nipples and bright red pubic hair was too much for the already horny Abe.  Slinging the picture over his shoulder, he staggered to the bedroom.
***
Abe awoke from a sound sleep.  He grinned sheepishly as he remembered how he had spent the night.  He’d heard of guys who used rubber women to relieve their passions, and essentially that is what he had done.  But how many guys sleep with a fake woman three times in one night?  How many stay up after whispering sweet nothings into a photo’s ear?  Abe justified it by thinking he was just practicing for his future meeting with Tami.  He reached over to smooth out the image and make sure it hadn’t gotten crinkled during the night.  When his hand made contact, he got the shock of his life.

He had touched skin!  Flipping over quickly, he was relieved to see that it was still only the photo lying next to him in bed, still smiling as usual.  But he had felt…

He touched the image’s bare shoulder.  Sober now, he began to feel very uneasy.
This was no photo.  It was too soft, to flimsy, too warm.  If he couldn’t feel the sheets behind it, he would have sworn he was running his hands over a woman’s shoulders.

“Mmmm,” came a whisper.

“Who said that?!” shouted Abe.

“Don’t stop.  That feels good.”

“Who’s talking?”

“It’s me!  C’mon, you sleep with me and then don’t remember?”

Abe had practically ransacked his whole room looking for a hidden tape recorder or microphone before he turned his attentions back to ‘Tami.’

“Satisfied Abe?” whispered Tami.  “It really is me!  C’mon, feel me again.  Tell me I don’t feel like a woman.”

“You feel like a woman…but you’re so flat!  How is this possible?”

“I don’t know.  I got caught in some machine.  My roommate thought I was my gift to you and mailed me by mistake.  So here I am!”

“Why didn’t you say anything to her?”

“I couldn’t.  My vocal chords don’t work.  It wasn’t until I was in the mail that I remembered that you don’t need vocal chords to whisper.  I had been trying to shout, but when I talked quietly I realized I was audible.  I waited till I got here because I only trusted you to know what happened.”

“Can you change back?”

“I don’t know.  I hope so!  I doubt you’d stay interested in me this way for long.”

“Well…” Abe ran his hand over Tami’s flattened stomach.  “I’d be interested in you no matter what.  And I wouldn’t have thought it, but you look rather sweet this way.”

“Really?  What do you mean?”

“It’s hard to explain.  It’s just that you are still totally beautiful and now I know that you need me, that I have to take care of you.  For some reason you being flat like this is pretty damn exciting.”

“Well, you certainly were excited last night.”

“Oh, Jesus Tami, I’m so sorry!  I didn’t know…”

“Calm down.  If I didn’t want you to make love to me I would have said something.  I enjoyed every second of it.   In fact, if you are feeling up to it…”
***
Hours later, Abe stepped out of the shower.  He then dried himself, thoroughly.  Even after he was no longer damp he continued to towel himself.  Finally, he wrapped his towel, which bore a remarkable resemblance to a naked redhead, around his waist and returned to the bedroom.

“I’m looking forward to spending the holidays with you,” came a voice from his crotch.  “I think we’ll think of some interesting ways to pass the time.”

Abe spread Tami out on the bed.  “How long can you stay?”

“Until you have to go back to work, I guess.  I suppose I should look into getting back to normal.  After New Year’s you can mail me back.  Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Nothing, never mind.”

“Is it about what I said last night?”

“Yes, no!  Forget it, you were drunk.”

“But I meant every word I said.  I’d marry you in an instant if you said…”

“YES!”

They kissed.  Well, Abe kissed, Tami’s mouth was stuck in a smile, which at the moment matched her emotions.

“So when can we set a date?”  came a voice from a crumpled Tami.

“Just as soon as you get unflattened.”

Tami felt nervous.  “What if I can’t get unflattened?”

“Well, as soon as we find out either way.  Besides, I’m sure there has to be a way.  I won’t rest until you are safely back to normal.”  He kissed her again.  “I guess I should enjoy this while I can.”

“Well, if I kind of enjoy being like this.  For once my life isn’t stressed out.  No job, no meals to cook, no clothes to wash…I can just lie back and let you take care of me!”
“I know that shouldn’t turn me on, but it does.”

“I suppose I’ll have to stay unflattened for a while, you know, to get prepared for the wedding, get moved, meet your family.  But after we settle down, I think you might find your wife prefers her flattened state.  Maybe I’ll only want to be 3D when we have to go out.”

“Mmmm…”  Abe looked at his flattened fiancée.  At last, he had met the girl of his dreams.  And she’d always be his, forever.

“God Tami, I don’t know which of us enjoy your state more.  I don’t know if I’d ever turn you back, except you’d be bored all day, when I’m at work.”

“Oh, I dunno.  I got to thinking earlier, there are a number of careers I can have like this.  For instance…”