"Man, I can't believe you're all done with your finals already!" Carmen said, dripping with envy.
"Hey, sucks to suck," Diandra replied jokingly. She let out a relaxed sigh and grinned. "It sure does feel great to have nothing to do but play video games for the rest of summer."
"I'm so jealous, I still have three more finals. I have to study for calculus, make flash cards for chemistry, and, ummmm..." Carmen furrowed her brow in thought.
Diandra helpfully chimed in, "Do you have to do anything for that blow-off art class you're taking?"
Carmen suddenly froze in the middle of the campus sidewalk, looking as though she had just watched her entire family get hit by a train.
"You forgot your art final, didn't-"
"FUCK!" Carmen yelled, causing many a head to turn and many a bird to flee.
"Calm down, I'm sure you'll get it done. What do you have to do?" comforted Diandra.
Carmen clutched her head in her hands as she threw her head back in distress, "It's some bullshit about 'an abstract representation of the human form.' Ugh, like I actually give a shit! I don't even have a model!"
Diandra felt a familiar sinking feeling in her gut as she empathized with her distraught friend. Eager to cheer her friend up, Diandra offered to help.
"Well, I guess I could help model if you need someone really bad."
Carmen's eyes briefly lit up. "Really? Oh Diandra, you're the best! But, there's still the problem of not being able to paint something good within that time." Carmen's temporary optimism had been shattered by her remembrance of the imminent deadline.
Diandra wanted to cheer Carmen up, so she said the first humorous thing that came to mind, "Hey, I'm pretty cute, just turn me in and you'll probably get an A." She smiled, not knowing the significance of her silly quip.
"Huh, yeah, maybe if we could squeeze you into a frame..." Carmen said before getting lost in her own thoughts. There was that news story of that girl who ran into that steamroller...
"Uh, you're not actually considering that, right? I mean, I'm a person, not a painting," Diandra said with a short laugh.
"No, but maybe..." Carmen placed her hands on each side of Diandra's face. She squeezed her hands together, squishing Diandra's cheeks until the corners of her mouth were touching. Well, she is pretty squishy, Carmen thought to herself. Diandra's body type could be described as slightly thick, bordering on chubby. Her metabolism had kept her from getting fat for the past 21 years. That being said, she never really worked out, and much of the fat she ate went straight to her thighs and butt.
"Uh, what are you doing?" Diandra tried to say through her temporarily vertical mouth, though the sounds that came out were more muffled than a broken down radio from the 1940's.
"Does this hurt?" Carmen asked as she squeezed even harder.
Diandra shook her head no in response. Diandra had always felt she had a pretty high pain tolerance, especially when it came to pressure on her body. Carmen finally released Diandra from her grasp.
"I need to grab some supplies. Come to my house at 8," Carmen said as she turned and ran back towards campus. As Diandra watched her leave, she cheeks still felt like they were slightly pressed in. She walked home, gently massaging her face and wondering what plan Carmen had come up with.
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"So, let me get this straight," Diandra said with genuine disbelief, "You want to flatten my body, spread me around to make me look 'abstract,' put me in a frame, and turn me in as your final?"
"Well, technically you'll already be in the frame while I spread you out, but yes," replied Carmen calmly. Carmen sat on her bed in her room as Diandra skeptically studied her from her work desk.
"...Has the stress made you insane? Do you need to see a doctor?"
"No no no, look, the video finally loaded," Carmen said as she held up her phone to Diandra's face. The video, shot by some heathen who amateurishly shot it vertically from his phone, showed a woman as a huge steamroller slowly rolled over her.
"Gross Carmen, I don't want to watch some fucking snuff video!" exclaimed Diandra as she tried to push the phone out of sight.
"No, she's still alive, just watch!" Carmen frantically tried to convince her friend.
Diandra trusted Carmen, so she reluctantly continued watching. The video abruptly ended as the steamroller had completely passed over the hapless woman. In the woman's place was a very flat version of herself, laying on the street with a shocked expression.
"Oh, it was fake. Well, it had me convinced!" Diandra was relieved that her friend wasn't really as weird as she thought for a moment. However, this relief was quickly quelled.
"It was real! Here, they did a news story on it!" Carmen brought up another video.
It was a Channel 5 new report. They showed it from multiple angles, they interviewed bystanders, and they even had the flattened woman on the show after she had gotten back to normal. The woman explained the experience and the sensations in vivid detail. Diandra checked the date on the report to make sure it wasn't an April Fools joke.
"See, I told you, it's real! And there are other stories like this! And now, I need you to do it for me!" Carmen's face got closer to Diandra's with every exclamation, intensity burning in her eyes. "You heard the lady, it won't hurt at all! Help me Diandra, you're my only hope!"
Diandra was still bewildered by what was happening. She could no longer deny the reality of the situation, despite the cartoon-like nature of the scenario. It took her a full 15 seconds to appreciate her friend's Star Wars reference, something she would have caught immediately if not for the situation. Diandra looked into Carmen's pleading eyes, anticipating the massive heart break if she denied her friend.
"Well," Diandra said, averting her gaze, "I don't have anything better to do than help a friend. I guess we can give it a shot."
"YEAH!" yelled Carmen as she giddily bounced up and down. "Thank you so so so so so so much!" Carmen took her friend by the arm and led her to the other room. Diandra wondered what she had gotten herself into.
"Cool, now just lay down on this," Carmen said as she pointed towards the back half of a giant frame. "Oh, and take off your clothes."
"What!?" cried Diandra.
"Oh don't be such a prude, I need to show the beauty of the human body. Besides, you'll be abstract, no one will recognize you."
Diandra angrily stripped as she thought about whether she would have agreed to this if she had known she would be naked. She then dutifully complied with her friend as she laid her back onto the frame.
"OK, so I figured the point of this piece would be the pressure of life on a young girl or something like that, so I'm gonna want, like, a shocked expression," explained Carmen as she managed to lift up a huge sheet of glass over her head.
"Uh, Carmen, I think I might be having second thou-"
Diandra was interrupted as Carmen closed her eyes, jumped up, and slammed the sheet of glass onto Diandra's body. She opened her eyes, only now worrying about the glass shattering, to see the beginning of her project.
What the fuck? Diandra thought to herself as she tried to grasp her current situation. She felt the immense pressures of the glass sheet on top of her, and as she tried to get a better look at what had become of her she found that she could hardly move. Then, she noticed that the entire front side of her was touching something at the same time. I guess that's the sheet that Carmen just slammed on me, she thought to herself. She noticed that the only parts of her body that didn't feel like they were being touched at this point were the sides of her body. She figured out at this point that she probably hadn't been completely flattened like that woman under the steamroller, but instead still had probably less than an inch of depth.
Carmen admired her work so far. Diandra had unwillingly made the shocked expression that Carmen was hoping for when she noticed the glass come towards her. Her eyes were wide with surprise, her mouth formed a perfect "O" shape, and she had brought her hands up to either side of her face, as if she was trying to stop her fate. Carmen admired how the entire front of Diandra's body was now an even plane. She noticed Diandra wiggle around in her new form.
"Hey, you look great!" Carmen cheerfully cried. "Thank you so much again for this!" Suddenly having a moment of thought, Carmen approached Diandra and asked, "Are you still alright under there? Wiggle around a bunch more if you need to come out."
Diandra stilled herself for a moment, thinking about her situation. I guess I'm not hurt, she thought to herself, and I did promise I would help her. Maybe I just need to get used to it. Then again...
"Cool, looks like it's time for the next step!" Carmen had mistaken her friend's indecision for clearance to proceed. Carmen suddenly bounced onto the glass sheet, laying herself down stomach first onto her project. Diandra immediately felt the effects of the extra 150 pounds of pressure. Feeling herself get even thinner, all she could do was let out a moan. This time, however, was different than the slamming of the glass. As she looked into her friend's smiling face, she felt her mass spread out a bit under the weight. Despite the overall situation making little sense, it made sense that the slower crushing force of her friend would cause her body to spread out as it was thinned.
This is definitely weird, but not too bad I guess... Diandra thought to herself. The pressure was somewhat relaxing, and it actually felt pretty good around her crotch.
"Alright, time for the spreading!" Carmen cheered. "Ready?" she asked, not expecting an answer.
Carmen then began to shift her weight in random spots along the glass sheet. This, in turn, caused Diandra's body to be spread out unevenly. Her previous sensations had gotten even stranger, as she felt parts of her flatten out faster than other parts. Carmen then went from her gradual movements to fast, jerky shifts that caused Diandra to smear all across both layers of glass. Diandra barely managed to form a coherent thought amidst the intense sensations; I'm becoming a Diandra sandwich. This observation, inspired by her recent play through of Resident Evil, was fairly apt. At this point, Diandra was not unlike a splotch of mayonnaise spread across the surface of a hamburger.
Carmen continued her wiggling atop her final project, spreading and smearing her friend. After minutes had passed, she looked down at the side of the frame. Seeing that there was practically no space at all between the two pieces of glass that Diandra had been smushed between, she stood up to admire her handiwork.
'A cute mess' were the words that came to mind as she observed her friend's new body. Diandra had been spread out across the entire frame, her still visible features comically spread out. Her face, to Carmen's delight, had been smeared unevenly turning her previously "O" shaped mouth into a shape that more resembled someone violently splashing some paint onto a canvas. Carmen was even more delighted to see that Diandra's eyes, though similarly smeared, retained their beautiful pattern of colors, giving the whole piece a splash of bluish-green. It took Carmen a second to notice, but Diandra's nose was also visible, just slightly blended in with the rest of her face. Looking down over her masterpiece, Carmen saw that the rest of her was mostly skin tone, with some smears and swirls visible throughout. Only faint lines were visible where the different parts of her body touched, as the intense smearing had caused parts of her to fuse together.
Diandra managed to get her thoughts together. She was now experiencing the feeling of her entire body being touched at the same time, either by the glass or by another part of her. The tiny sliver that constituted her depth didn't even feel like it was there. At this point, she tried moving and making sounds, but both effort were for naught. She had to admit, it didn't feel that bad, all things considered.
"Awesome! You look amazing, Diandra! Now, let me just seal you up and you'll be all ready to turn in on Friday!"
Friday?! Diandra frantically thought to herself, Today's Tuesday! Damn it, I'm going to be some avant-garde art piece for three more days?
"Uh, sorry if it was a bit early, but I wanted to make sure it worked, and I have a lot of studying to do," Carmen explained, almost as though she had read Diandra's thoughts. She put glue on the edges of the two pieces of the frame and stuck the outside piece on. "Well, I guess you can just hang out with me until then, huh? Get it, hang out, because I'm hanging you on the wall in my room."
Diandra mentally sighed to herself, This is not how I expected to spend my first days of summer...
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"Two weeks? You can't grade any faster?" Carmen desperately cried to her professor.
"I'm sorry miss, but it's the shortest time I can have to critique all this art. Why, if I had all the time in the world, I would spend weeks just to admire your lovely piece," the professor responded as she patted the stack of finals containing Diandra.
Stupid snob, Carmen thought to herself. "Well, I wasn't planning on coming back to campus for a month or two, and I really wanted to have that back before I leave... You know, to, uh... show my friends..."
"Oh don't worry, if you aren't back I'll just hang it up in the student gallery for everyone to see! Surely this is an alright compromise, since there's no way I can grade them all before you leave."
Well, Diandra did want to help me really bad, and really, the past few days would just be a waste if I didn't go through with this...
"...I guess that's fine. Just, uh, try to hang it up as soon as you can. It, like, needs to, you know, like, get out every once in a while, you know-"
"Ah yes, as a fellow lover of art, I understand. Now, is there anything else you needed?"
"Uh, nope, see ya..." Carmen guiltily left the classroom.
Diandra, having heard the whole thing, was fuming. Unfortunately, being just an art project, she could do nothing about what would happen to her. She just hoped that Carmen was playing a joke on her, or else she would have to hope that someone from her other classes recognized her and took her down.
I guess I'm going to have an even less active summer than I expected, Diandra thought to herself as she felt another project get placed on top of her.