You think my temperament was at fault? To insinuate, as I know you think and I know you will, that somehow it was a terrible lunacy that befalls me - it is to insult me most dearly, to break my actions down to barest of all elements. It is an inane thought to try and reduce all actions of a balanced, earnest, and honest human into base causes and reactions. Cause and effect, stimulus and response; in doing so, in attempting to render me so completely without agency and unfree you yourself admit that you’re a slave all your own! Such theories are the domain of the ivory tower, not of real people. You may not yet say it, but you think it; you think me mad, based on your shackled definitions of madness and sanity. And in doing so, you reveal your ultimate slavery!

    My supposed “lapse” in judgement was nothing of the sort! Surely you can’t possibly consider me to have lost my judgement - not once I explain my actions. They were far from the ‘lunatic’ you describe; nothing of the thoughtless brute I know you think me to be.

    She had stayed in that room for nearly a year now. In all that time she had never once wronged me nor given my trouble. She was the very model of a citizen save her accursed voice. It haunted me day and night. She’d speak on the phone and she’d speak to others. That accursed girl would throw open the window to greet passers-by, giving them the cheeriest of smiles and most earnest of greetings but swaddling them both in her voice. That discordant, shrill shriek ruined every dawn with her “Good Morning!” and kept me up late into the evening with her “good night!” Her banshee’s wail echoed through the home. She’d try to sing in the shower, she’d talk to herself, and through it all she never once realized just how insufferable her voice had become. When I resolved to end it, I knew that I would need to transform it. I could not silence her forever lest it become the last thing I heard; merely evicting her would leave that shriek echoing in my ears for the rest of time. And so I resolved to permanently transform that voice from a rasping thing of torment to a gagged serenade.

    Oh, how I wish I could show you! I was the perfect host in the week leading up to my plan’s execution. She never suspected a thing! Each night I’d carefully close the door and make sure it was fast shut before I retired. And on that night, I did the same, instead letting myself in. The door was shut, as it always was, but with me inside. She must have known it, for she sat up in the middle of the pitch darkness. The window was locked and triple-bolted for fear of burglars, and every source of light in the room had been covered to help facilitate her infuriatingly sensitive sleep.

    I heard her speak for the last time that night. She asked if anyone was there, she muttered to herself. But I knew and she knew alike that she was not alone. It must have been a mouse, she said aloud. It was to comfort herself, I know, but it must have been of little comfort when I made my move.

    That tension was so palpable. She must have been quivering with anticipation for the better quarter of an hour when my hand first laid on her face. She struggled as I pressed the chloroform against her nose. I felt her soft features in my hand and her strong legs kicking at my sides, but already her voice had gone. It was replaced by a melodious grunt, a pleasing and muffled sound of her lips pressed against my hand.

    Success! But it would be only temporary. I knew that I needed to hear those grunts and mewls more; I needed to block out and erase that shrill voice.

    I stripped her totally bare, putting her clothes in the incinerator. I placed her in a fetal position, with her arms curled around her knees and her knees against her chest. It had a certain beauty about it; a vulnerability to sight and touch that I’d not seen in her before.

    I decided that I’d give myself a few extra minutes to take in her body before finishing the deed. I took a roll of plastic wrap and began to cover her from stem to stern. It was tough work at times. The plastic wrap would stretch or snap, and I’d be forced to give it another layer to make certain it would hold. Her unconscious body was difficult to position in the dark, and I was forced to bring in a single light.

    Occasionally, I’d hear her begin to come awake and I knew I needed to act faster. My arms grew tired, and I began to switch off. One would keep the girl in place, the other would extend the film across her nude body. From the bottom of her feet to the top of her neck and then back down again, I worked as quickly as I could. I knew I had just minutes before she awoke and my plans would be ruined. I’d hear her infernal shriek and it would all be for naught.

    There was time to marvel at my handiwork, though; I checked up and down to make certain I’d encompassed her skin as tightly as I could. It was gratifying to see her lovely flesh and luscious curves so snugly compacted within the film. I slipped a breathing tube beneath her lips and began to wrap over her face as well. This much I did in just a few scant minutes; I hardly gave myself time to take in that cute face, or enjoy the way it looked when it was behind impermeable plastic.

    That tube would keep her from ever forming another word again, but all was well - I could pipe her sweet moans and mewls into my own quarters. I’d serenade myself to sleep soon enough with gagged grunts. As I shrank the wrap, I was already envisioning sound nights of sleep, free from her voice but filled with her essence.

    I provided a second and final layer with great relish and ease. She was awake now, but too fearful and red in the face to say or resist. She yelped and groaned, but I’d taper down on her breathing tube and soon she’d be quiet. I chose a thick, black tape to seal her within. Surely she’d never be able to escape! The tape began to stretch over her body, and with each long strip I think her hope for rescue grew dimmer and dimmer.

    The single light in the room reflected its glossy exterior. Her mummification started at her neck and went down from there. I was - and never will be - some lunatic or madman. I took the greatest of pains to ensure her vitality and figure alike would be preserved, carefully wrapping each nook and cranny to ensure access. I saw her grow red as the evening sun when I touched at her rear, ensuring that there was a sizable groove between her legs - a place to touch, to tease, to kiss, and to thoroughly molest. I slid toys up and down the exterior of her shining black encasement, so that she knew and understood what was to become of her. I think that she was aware, for she provided the most succulent yelps and pleading sounds through her gag.

    I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off of her. Even though thick layers dulling her senses, I ran my fingers up and down her form. I carefully caressed her neck and cheeks one last time before wrapping her face. She was perfect, in a way; no skin, no blemishes, no terrible voice or judging eyes. Only the splendid outline of her body remained, curled up and prepared for a restful night after the fitful sleep I had inflicted upon her. I considered that she might think herself in a dream, and perhaps expected to awake free from her multifaceted mummification and those luscious layers.

    By the time I’d hidden her beneath my room, she was breathing at a steady pace and otherwise silent. It was fortuitous that she’d calmed down, for I heard a knocking at my front door. A few neighbors had come by, asking if that girl was all right. I told her she’d been out all night and hadn’t returned. They said they were used to seeing her greet them every morning and wanted to know if she had left a note.

    I knew that my plans were foolproof and that my slave was now perfectly packaged; there’d be no chance of discovery. I led them through the house, noting that her valuables were missing and that the windows were in perfect working order. She’d simply not returned, I insisted, but this only emboldened them. They were convinced that she had left a note or clue to her disappearance.

    I felt the judgement of their eyes. They’d seen the scissors, the plastic wrap, and the tape littered around the house. They’d noticed the full trash bags of used-up rolls and packages. They said nothing, but they looked all the harder. I tried to shoo them off, to tell them that I’d call the police if they didn’t leave, but they split up and combed through the home.

    I grew pale. From beneath my bed in my own chambers, I heard her.

    Mmmmmmngh.

    They stood and chatted, inquiring as to how the girl’s health had been and if she had been well. The sound continued; that melodious, beautiful moan of pleasure was becoming more painful than that shrieking voice I had sought to banish.

    “Hmmnnnnnng.” A thump, thump thump sound echoed from my room. I grew pale. I tried to tell them to leave more forcefully. I found myself gasping for breath.

    Surely, then , they heard it. They must have known she was alive and well, and wrapped in endless layers of plastic and tape. They could hear her; those sounds mixing fear and pleasure, but they didn’t tell me. They toyed with me now that I was caught.

    I grew cross, and began shoving at them. Out the door, I said, but they only acted confused. The thumping grew louder; the tiny compartment in which I had entombed her must have triggered some latent sensations. That girl, that strange claustrophiliac was begging for more, humping at the sides of the compartment, moaning all the louder still. They must have heard it. I knew they heard it, and they only grinned! Oh Lord, anything was better than this agony. I could bear their hypocritical smiles no longer! “What’s wrong?” they said. “We’re only trying to see where she’s gone off to.” And yet I knew and they knew alike where she was!

    I race to my room and tipped my bed over with a crash. I pulled up the carpet and kicked open the trap-door to the horror of the neighbors.

    “Stop the act! I can bear it no more! I admit it, I admit to all of it! Here, here, the sound of her terrible, terrible voice!”