Poppy

"The great thing about these small towns, Pilár, is that they're grateful to you."

"Yes, Mrs Backscue."

"In the big cities they can be so snobbish. You go to one of these big shops like Versace, they won't even let you in if they don't think you look right, and if you do get in they make you feel common if you've got the wrong accent."

"Yes, Mrs Backscue."

"Out here, though, they're not used to rich people. They think it's a privilege to deal with us. I can bring as much money to a local shop in a day as they'd normally see in a week, maybe a month, so they always give me the best service. Mind you, I suppose even this place looks luxurious to you, compared with what you were used to in the Philippines."

"Yes, Mrs Backscue."

"It must be wonderful for you to work for someone like me...and for your family. Are you sure you know the way?"

"Yes, Mrs Backscue. It's not a very big village."

The white Mercedes convertible took the left-hand turn, passed a few picturesque brick houses, and drew in to the side of the road. A small, rather skinny young woman with long black hair and Oriental features got out of the driver's seat and walked round to the passenger side. She opened the door with one hand, extending the other. A plump, well-manicured hand with scarlet nails, much adorned with rings, its wrist encircled by a triple strand of scarlet beads, reached out to grasp it. Poppy Backscue liked being helped out of the car because it made her feel important and aristocratic, but there was a practical purpose as well. That first step was always difficult.

Poppy twisted round in her seat and carefully lowered her feet to the ground. They were small and pudgy, with toenails varnished scarlet by Pilár that morning, and laboriously strapped into beautiful, intricate scarlet sandals with needle-slender five-inch heels. The tarmac was smooth, but even so Poppy shifted her feet several times to make sure they were as securely placed as possible before daring to put any weight on them. She had little room to manœuvre in the outfit she had chosen today, and it could be disastrous if she lost her precarious balance. Also, though she didn't like to admit it, the delicate sandals were bearing rather more weight than they were designed to take.

When she was as sure as she could be that her dainty stilettos would not betray her, she tensed her arm and began to pull herself upright. It was Pilár's task, of course, to do most of the work, and there was quite a bit of work to do. As Poppy's maid, live-in hairdresser, seamstress, wardrobe adviser, dogsbody and confidante, Pilár knew every pound her employer had gained in the two years she had had this job: Poppy had lamented them all in detail, over and over again. She had not, however, done much to stop them accumulating, neither by diet nor exercise: her approach seemed to be that if she convinced herself it was only temporary, it wouldn't last. As Pilár hauled her employer to her feet, taking care not to give any sounds of effort Poppy would consider insulting, the problems of this method emerged from the luxurious seclusion of the Mercedes into the hard light of day.

Poppy had ordered the brown cashmere suit to have something suitable to wear for her husband's business functions. He hadn't been inviting her along, which hurt her feelings, but she could see that her usual style didn't really fit in with those people, and she had tried to adapt herself to the way they dressed. That Jonathan Backscue considered the cashmere suit even more unsuitable than the turquoise satin strapless minidress she had chosen for the BUPA conference hurt her even more. As far as she was concerned, it was a classic cut and fitted perfectly, made especially to her measurements. The fact that the skirt was barely mid-thigh-length and revealed her stocking tops and suspenders if she sat down was surely an advantage: men liked to look at that, didn't they? And though the measurements to which it had been made were those she aspired to rather than those she possessed, well, it showed off her curves, and she had always had plenty of them. Maybe it was just a little strained here and there, but Jonathan said himself he liked the look of it: why couldn't she go along with him when she was wearing it? It was just like the other businesswomen wore, except a little bit more sexy. What could possibly be wrong with it?

She took a few tiny steps, limited by the impossibly tight suit skirt, and then stopped to admire her reflection in the draper's window. It pleased her, as it always had. She had always been pretty, and she still was, even if what bone structure she had shown as a young woman was now blurred by a soft layer of fat gently spreading beneath the skin of her face. She noticed again a suspicion of a double chin, but putting her head back convinced herself it was only a shadow. Her hair was the same mass of golden-blonde curls that had enchanted Jonathan back when she was working as his receptionist, her eyes still large and handsome and dark green, carefully outlined with shadow and mascara to make them look larger and greener. She had plucked and pencilled her eyebrows carefully this morning as every morning, coloured her lips in deliciously kissable carmine, and complimented them with the heavy earrings Jonathan had given her before they were married-gold filigree fittings around a pearl core, with a pendant two inches across hanging from them, a fat carmine agate polished till it glowed set in a wide gold filigree disc. She practised a few coquettish turns of her head, and admired the way they swung about. The rest of her face she had carefully layered with powder and paint until even the slightest suggestion of a line was buried like a fossil. Below, the jacket tightly buttoned up with no blouse beneath it exposed a triangle of skin, soft, smooth and pale pink, dipping down to the beginnings of her lush cleavage. The suit was modestly cut compared to the tops and dresses she preferred, showing just a hint of the upper slopes of her bosom, but she had had it fitted on purpose several inches smaller than her actual bust measurement, so that the straining button proclaimed to the world how difficult it was to fit such a magnificent bust inside a mere suit jacket. It certainly drew the eye, which was what she wanted. There were disadvantages to this kind of fit, especially that the button was liable to pop off suddenly in moments of stress, but after all there was always Pilár to chase after it, to pick it up, and to sew it back on again. Below that the jacket was carefully darted to hug her sharply pinched waist, and cut short to end at the hip with pleats to show off how suddenly those hips expanded again. The short, plain skirt was a guaranteed draw: she thought with pride as she turned side on that it was the tightest skirt in the county, and she still had the best-shaped bottom. It took a little help these days, of course, but the way it stuck boisterously out from the back of her waist, straining the skirt as if trying to burst through the fabric and demand attention, was one of her best features. No wonder Jonathan liked it when she wore that too-tight uniform back at the clinic! And the short skirt showed off her legs too. Not skinny like some girls, but well-rounded. Maybe she could stretch one leg back to make it look longer. That pose should work well in this skirt. The only trouble was that there wasn't really enough room to do it, the hemline was so tight. Attempting a cheeky smile, she began easing her left foot back, teetering more and more as she tried to keep her weight balanced on one of those dainty sandals, with just the tip of her left toe to steady herself against the increasing wobble. She could see Pilár reflected in the window behind her looking worried: silly woman didn't believe she could keep her balance on one foot in five-inch stilettos. She'd been wearing them for twenty years-no, that made her sound old, and in this outfit she didn't look a day over twenty. Well, twenty-five. Well...she decided to concentrate on the view. She was getting a hint of stocking top now. What man could resist that? A little further and there'd be a bit of suspender, not too much, just enough to suggest that it was a little accident, she wasn't showing off on purpose-

"Mrs Backscue?"

Poppy whipped round, tottered on her heels, and almost fell. She was first relieved and then embarrassed to find Pilár ready to catch her. When she had sorted out which way was up she struggled back to her own feet and said crossly "What?"

The draper had come to the door and was looking out. "We're ready for you. Your...you know. I thought you'd come to collect it, but then you didn't come in, so-"

"Yes, of course I'm coming in! You country people are so silly! Come on, Pilár. Bring Topsy with you." She turned round and clicked into the shop. Pilár reached into the car to lift out a small fat Peke and followed.

"You don't have many customers, do you?" Poppy observed, looking round.

"We get by," Mrs Fea said defensively.

"All the same," Poppy said, relishing her superior position, "it wouldn't matter too much if you closed the shop until you've finished with me? I mean, it isn't as if there are a lot of people coming in, and I'm your best customer."

Mrs Fea took a deep breath, or as deep a breath as her high-waisted girdle and strongly-built longline bra allowed, then let it out slowly. "There's nobody else here at the moment, Mrs Backscue," she said, "but that doesn't mean nobody else will come in before you leave. It has been known for other people to come in from time to time."

The sarcasm made no impression on Poppy, who wasn't really equipped to detect it. "You can't deal with them when you're dealing with me. You'll have to close the shop. After all, you wouldn't be able to help them anyway, until I'm done."

"I can't really afford to lose that much business-"

Poppy waved her hand airily, and her bracelets rattled. "Oh, that doesn't matter, does it? Pilár has my chequebook." Behind her Pilár nodded warily.

Mrs Fea thought for a while, then nodded. "All right," she said, walking forward to lock the door and turn the sign to Closed. "Follow me, please. Is that dog of yours housetrained?"

"Of course she is!" Poppy said defensively, and wiggled over to kiss the forehead of the fat little dog Pilár was still holding. "Aren't you, sweetie?"

"I hope so," Mrs Fea said. "Please walk this way."

She led the way behind the counter, through the curtains, and past rows of boxes in the dingy back of the shop to a narrow flight of stairs. "Why are we going up here?" Poppy grumbled.

"I do all my adjustments in my flat, Mrs Backscue," the draper said as she headed up towards a small patch of light at the top. "It's something I can do in the evening while I'm watching the television with my family."

"With your family!" Poppy exclaimed as she picked her way carefully up the steep stairs, grateful for the railings on both sides, taking each step carefully with her right foot first and drawing the left after it. "I thought your sign said 'Foundations fitted with confidentiality and integ-integ-integration'!"

"'Integrity', Mrs Backscue," Mrs Fea said, as she reached the top of the stairs. Seeing her best customer was struggling a few steps down, she leant forward and offered her hand. Poppy's hand, she found, was soft, plump and smooth, almost like a child's: it was clearly not a hand troubled by washing-up, as the long nails testified. "My family know better than to talk about anything they might see. Besides, I never let them know who the garment is for."

"You'd better not," Poppy complained as she reached the top and found there wasn't really room enough for the two of them at the top of the stairs. An ordinary person caught in the crush as they squeezed past each other might have noticed the steely solidity of the curves under Poppy's too-tight suit and Mrs Fea's severe white blouse and black trousers, but shopkeeper and customer were both too well-corseted to feel how corseted the other was when they made contact. Seeing Poppy go by, Mrs Fea had no alternative but to say "In through the second door on the left, please. That's our sitting room."

Poppy wiggled along the narrow corridor. From the point of view of the two women behind she almost completely blotted out the light from the window at the far end which was its only illumination, but a great deal of daylight showed between her elbows and her waist before the sumptuous outward curve of her hips followed below. As Poppy turned to open the sitting room door, the pattern of curves changed: now it was the outward thrust of her bosom in front and her bottom behind that caught the attention. Mrs Fea and Pilár both knew perfectly well that there should have been another bulge in front lower down, but they were well paid to keep it under control and not say anything about it.

When the other two women reached the sitting room door Poppy was over by the window, looking out. "Put Topsy down and let her run around," she ordered. Pilár did as she was told, and the Peke waddled panting into the middle of the room and lay down to watch. Without turning round, Poppy asked "Are you sure this is safe? I mean, nobody's going to look in through this window and see us."

"That's a field. The only people out there, Mrs Backscue, are cows. I don't think they're interested. Anyway, there are net curtains on the window. You don't have to worry."

"If you say so. Pilár, come and help me undress."

Mrs Fea sat down. The first time Poppy called on her, she had been surprised by how difficult and protracted was the process of taking her clothes off. Now she knew what to expect.

Pilár began with the jacket. This was tricky, because of the strain on the buttons: the top button, which she left to last, was a particular effort. Finally, though, she managed to pry it open, and put the jacket on a hanger Mrs Fea had thoughtfully provided on the back of the door. The top half of Poppy's underwear was exposed: a tight, powerful longline bra, its large cups filled to bursting point, and from just below her bust downward something even tighter squeezing her in still more firmly. Despite the strong fabric of the bra's bodice holding her to a smooth line, there was a definite ridge of flesh pushed out through it. Pilár unfastened the back zip of the too-tight suit skirt next, and it showed absolutely no inclination to come down by itself. She began patiently working it downwards, and it resisted her every inch of the way as it slid over the smooth black Lycra and satin of the girdle it slowly revealed. Poppy's girdle was clearly even tighter than her bra and skirt, which was an achievement. It was very strongly made and held her waist and hips to a splendid hourglass curve, nipping in and then spreading out luxuriantly. Despite the boning and layers of reinforcement, though, the strain it was under was so tremendous that a few creases appeared here and there. Pilár squatted down to finish removing the skirt, and Poppy thoughtlessly leant a hand on her head to keep her balance while she was standing on one leg to step out of it. Then she tapped over to an armchair and sat down, sticking her legs straight out. Having hung the skirt up along with the jacket, Pilár began patiently unpicking the complex arrangements of straps and buckles that kept the delicate sandals on her employer's feet. As the first one came free Poppy gave a thoughtless sigh of relief, then noticed Mrs Fea looking at her. Embarrassed, she said "They're ever so pretty, but it's so tiring wearing high heels in this hot weather, don't you think?" The draper murmured agreement as Pilár finished removing Poppy's other sandal and put them on a shelf. Among Mrs Fea's decorative bric-a-brac they didn't look at all out of place: in fact, they were more tasteful than anything in the draper's collection. Pilár carefully unfastened Poppy's sheer black stockings from the sturdy and taut suspenders that helped keep her girdle from riding up, then hung them to the back of the chair.

Without being prompted, Poppy stood up again, a tense look on her face. Pilár walked respectfully up to her. "Mrs Backscue," she said, "please take a deep breath and hold it."

Poppy did as she was told, her bust swelling almost out of its confinement within the heavy bra. Pilár reached round to the strong zip that ran down the left side of the girdle, from a few inches above the waist down to the top of the hip bone. The designers had thoughtfully equipped it with a loop of ribbon to give better leverage, and it was a good thing: otherwise nothing but pliers would have shifted it, and that wasn't really very feminine. Poppy stood her ground, hands on hips, trying not to breathe, her face becoming visibly red even through the thick layer of make-up, as Pilár tugged harder and harder on the zip. At first nothing seemed to happen, but then it reached a crucial point and rushed down to the bottom. Poppy let her breath out in a gasp and relaxed slightly as Pilár began the complex task of pulling the now opened girdle off. Even unzipped it was still extremely tight about Poppy's upper thighs, and Pilár had to work her way round and round, tugging here and there, before it at last came free. The uncompressed hips and bottom revealed were rather different to those Poppy had been proud of exhibiting in her too-tight suit skirt: considerably larger, inclined to sag, a little lumpy here and there, and heavily imprinted with the seams and panels of the girdle that had been forcing them into shape. A pair of obviously Marks and Spencers panties protected her decency.

As Pilar lowered the girdle to the ground Poppy stepped out of it. Mrs Fea watched as the Filipina carefully lifted it up again and put it with her mistress's stockings. Comparing it to Poppy's unrestricted dimensions the whole thing seemed ludicrous: how could so much woman be contained by so little satin and elastic? She would never have dared recommend any customer of hers to wear a girdle so tight, but she had no intention of questioning Mrs Backscue's taste. She had appeared from London a few months ago, too-tight girdle and all, and had generated an enormous amount of business. Her taste in underwear tended to the elaborate and strong, and she bought a lot of it because it tended to wear out quickly under the strain. That just meant more sales, and Mrs Fea wasn't going to argue with that. If the customer didn't mind being packed into her foundations so tightly that she could hardly breathe, that was her choice.

Pilár had now moved behind Poppy and gone to work on the line of hooks down the back of the bra, which freed from the girdle was now seen to reach her waist. Poppy was holding her breath again. The hooks were under a lot of tension, and as she approached the waist Pilár had more and more trouble. As she neared the bottom Pilár became stuck, and while she was still struggling Poppy let her breath out with a whoosh.

"Please, no breathing yet, Mrs Backscue."

"I can't hold my breath any longer! What are you waiting for?"

"The last two hooks are stuck...Mrs Fea, perhaps you would help me...?"

Knowing her duties as a professional, Mrs Fea at once came to join in. It was quite obvious why Pilár was having trouble: the tension at the back of Poppy's longline bra was so tremendous that the hooks seemed welded into the eyes. At least half a centimetre of freedom was needed to pull them out, and that was inconceivable. For the moment, Mrs Fea was defeated.

"Well, you put it on this morning," she said, "so you must know how to get it off. What did you do?"

"It wasn't so bad this morning," Pilár said. "On the way here, though, we stopped in the tea-shop, and Mrs Backscue had some doughnuts-"

"Only one! Well, one or two. Three perhaps. Five at the outside. And a cream cake, but that was only a small-Pilár, stop making remarks like that and get on with your work. Remember who's in charge here."

"Yes, Mrs Backscue. Mrs Fea, if you would press in her sides, perhaps I can free the hooks."

Mrs Fea went round to the front and enveloped Poppy in what looked like a bear-hug. She groaned. Pilár fought with the hooks again, and this time was victorious. "There! Mrs Backscue, now you can breathe."

Poppy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Now," she said, "have you got the new corselette?"

"I have. Pilár, if you'd take off the bra, you can try it and see how it looks."

While she went to search in a cupboard, Pilár came round in front of Poppy again and gently helped her to slip her arms out from under the bra straps. The figure revealed now without its substructure of corsetry was one that had sadly gone to seed. Her bust was quite as large as it had looked, but it sagged down onto a small paunch that spoiled the impressive wasp-waist her girdle had exhibited. Poppy, too, seemed to sag as a whole without the support of her underwear: she seemed older, sadder, less flamboyant. She looked at herself sideways in the long mirror, then quickly looked away and said "Have you found the corselette yet?"

"I have," said Mrs Fea, bustling back. "If Pilár will help me, you can try it on."

"Let me have a look at it first." Mrs Fea handed over what she was carrying, and Poppy held it out to admire it. She smiled, as if at a much-loved child, the collapse of her ageing figure temporarily forgotten. "It looks like you did the alterations the way I wanted."

"I was very careful about that, Mrs Backscue. I did search the catalogues, but nobody seems to make an extra firm control corselette in this cup size which doesn't have a high neckline. I don't know whether Miss Mary would approve of me cutting away at the cups like this to give that plunge effect, but I think I've given you the style you wanted."

"It looks good," Poppy agreed, admiring the deep neckline of the otherwise rather matronly flesh-coloured corselette. "I don't like being so covered up. It's silly the way that the biggest women, the ones with the most to show off, end up in full-cup bras and it's all hidden. This is much better. Right! Let's try it on."

It was a good thing Mrs Fea had had the sense to request Pilár's help at the start: she would never have managed it on her own. She had seen Poppy putting on a girdle before, though, and knew that four hands were better than two. Getting stuck halfway and calling for help embarrassed the customer and made her feel fat: it was much better to start off with two people and pretend it was the usual thing. Most women who wore girdles and corselettes, of course, managed to get into them without any help at all, but then most women weren't Poppy Backscue.

Poppy stood with her hands on her hips, staring into space and trying to look as if she didn't know how much force her assistant and draper were putting into hauling her underwear up her widening thighs and over her hips. The corselette had a single zip down the front, and it didn't give quite as much room for Poppy's mighty posterior curves as the side zip of the girdle had. Still, with a great deal of struggling and twisting and pulling they did manage to set it in position, and Poppy was able to put her arms through the straps.

"Breathe in, hold it, and pull in your tummy, please," Mrs Fea said, with the air of one repeating a phrase that had become second nature. Poppy did as she was told, and the gap between the two sides of the open zip reduced from being impossible to merely disheartening. Mrs Fea stood behind her client and wrapped a pair of strong arms around her waist, crushing it inward, while Pilár yanked on the zip with both hands. It took a long time, and all three were very red in the face by the time the zip reached the top, but at least they managed it without trapping any tender bits of flesh in the teeth of the zip. That could be very embarrassing.

"You may breathe again, Mrs Backscue," said Mrs Fea, coming back round to the front. As Poppy began panting to make up for the air she had missed, the draper turned her round so that she could see her reflection in the long mirror. "Do you like it?"

"I love it!" Poppy gasped. "That's just the effect I wanted. Look!"

She pointed to her neckline, now dramatically exposed after Mrs Fea's alterations. As the zip was forced upwards it had forced ahead of it all the fat and flesh for which there was no room inside the strict corselette, and the only place available for it to expand was into the cups at the top. Poppy's own bust sat on top of all this, and there was barely room for it. She swelled out of the top of the corselette like a wave perpetually on the verge of breaking. The way it heaved up and down showed that the corselette was so tight it was hard for her to breathe, but that just made it even more impressive. She raised her hands to point at it, and a ripple ran through the undulating sea of bosom that took several seconds to die out. She watched it smiling until it faded beneath the constant surging and sinking of her struggle to breathe, then turned back.

"It's just right," she said. "I hope the dress is as good. Has she been over here for the measurements?"

"Oh, yes. She took them in every detail. I put it on a tailor's dummy, so that she had a proper impression of it as it would be worn, and she fitted the dress to that."

"Good. 'Cause I need this for my new outfit-I want the dress to fit nice and tight over my new figure, so I asked her to make it to the corselette's measurements. Otherwise I'd have had to wait till today for her to measure me, and then God knows how long again until the dress would be finished...this way I can be sure of what size I'll be in advance, as it's a good firm corselette. It is a good firm corselette, isn't it?"

"The firmest they sell."

Poppy looked back at her reflection and nodded. "Yes. Look how slim I am now!"

"Slim" wasn't exactly the word: the awesome curves of hip, bust and bottom still dominated the view from every angle. Still, she was slimmer than she had been with the mere bra and girdle to control her overenthusiastic figure, and for that Pilár and Mrs Fea were prepared to make the right noises of agreement. Poppy was satisfied: that was what mattered.

"Fine!" she said at last, when she had admired her newly corseted figure in every respect. "Pilár, help me dress and we can go on to the dressmaker."

"Would you like to sit down, Mrs Backscue, so I can help you with your stockings and shoes?"

"Oh! No...I don't think I want to sit down just yet. Let's wait until I've, uh, broken it in a little, eh?"

She walked over to lean on a cabinet whose well-polished glass shelves groaned with the weight of twee china bric-a-brac, holding onto it two-handed for balance while she stood on one leg for Pilar to ease the black stockings up her plump legs, taking due care to make sure the seams were absolutely straight as ordered, and then to strap her fat little feet back into the demanding sandals. Once Poppy was sure she had reacquainted herself with the art of balancing on a pair of five-inch spikes she gave Pilár permission to fetch her skirt. Mrs Fea watched in well-disguised amazement the labour of forcing it back up Poppy's legs, across her widening thighs, and finally over her larger-than-life hips and bottom before at last it could be secured round her waist. She had a lot of experience forcing customers' recalcitrant hips into too-tight girdles, but she had rarely met a girdle as tight and as difficult to manage as Poppy's suit skirt was. She knew better than to say anything, but when Poppy said artlessly "Pilár, isn't it good? It's so much easier to get into this skirt than it was this morning!" Mrs Fea forgot herself and muttered "What in God's name must this morning have been like?"

"Did you say something, Mrs Fea?" Poppy asked brightly.

"No, I was just clearing my throat."

"Oh, good! 'Cause we need to concentrate, you know."

The skirt was now nearly done. With a series of most unladylike jerks Pilár finally managed to close the hook about Poppy's well-corseted waist, and then forced the side zip up as best she could. "It doesn't matter if it doesn't quite go to the top, Pilár," Poppy reassured her, "my jacket covers that. Anyway, I'm only wearing it until I change into the new dress."

"If I'd known," Pilár said between gritted teeth, "I would have brought the pliers-"

"Shut up!" Poppy hissed, then looked at Mrs Fea with a nervous smile. "Foreigners do say some funny things, don't they? She says 'pliers' when she means 'brush'. She thinks there's some fluff on my skirt that needs brushing off. Nonsense, Pilár, it's perfectly all right." She brushed affectedly at the straining fabric over her hip. "Are you finished now?"

"I can't get it up any further."

"That'll do. Let me see my reflection again." Poppy did a half-turn in front of the long mirror, maintaining eye contact with herself, something she obviously enjoyed. "Gosh, I'm so much slimmer! Look, this skirt's really loose on me now!" Loose was not the word Mrs Fea would have used, but it was certainly looser: it was merely far too tight, but didn't actually look about to burst any more. She kept her counsel, though, while Pilár fetched the beautifully tailored little jacket and buttoned it up from the bottom. Around the waist it was less strained, but at the bust much more so: to fasten the top button Pilár had to force the two sides together with all the strength of her arms before she was at last able to pry the button through the buttonhole. She let go carefully and made sure she wasn't standing in front of Poppy, as if afraid the button was about to pop off. It looked ready enough to do that, but it held.

Poppy was pleased with the effect. "Wow," she said, "don't I look great! Look at that cleavage!" She pointed to the empty neckline of the suit, now filled with a deep and shadowy pass between two smoothly curving mountains of flesh. "That's so much better! Thank you!" She took one last look at herself, then regretfully turned from the mirror and wiggled precariously towards the door. "Come on, Pilár. Bring Topsy with you."

Mrs Fea cleared her through. "If I might remind you...?"

"What?"

"I think, Mrs Backscue," Pilár said respectfully, "she wants to be paid."

"Oh, yes, of course! How much?"

Mrs Fea produced a handwritten bill with the skill of an accomplished amateur magician, and handed it to Poppy. She peered at it for a while, held it closer to her face as if short-sighted, and her lips moved a little before her face cleared. "Oh, that's fine. I'm so pleased, I think I'll give you a bit more. Pilár, have you got the cheque-book?"

"Yes, Mrs Backscue." Pilár handed over a cheque-book bound in what looked like, and indeed was, hand-tooled Morocco leather, and an onyx fountain-pen. Poppy cast about for something to lean on:

"My writing-table is just there, Mrs Backscue."

"Oh, no, thanks. I don't want to sit down until I've broken the corselette in a bit, you see. I need something I can write on standing up...this'll do."

"This" was the cabinet of bric-a-brac she had leant against while Pilár was helping her with her stockings and shoes. Poppy rather hesitantly pushed the knick-knacks on the top aside to clear enough room for the cheque-book, then opened it and cautiously bent over. The too-tight skirt tautened still further, the firm panels of the corselette and the sturdy suspenders beneath showing through the straining fabric, making it quite clear how she was able to fit into it. It didn't give the impression Poppy wanted, but as Pilár and Mrs Fea looked at each other, the same thought occurred to them both: if she didn't know about it, it wouldn't worry her. As for Poppy, once she was sure that her corselette wasn't going to burst from the extra strain of bending twenty degrees forward, and wasn't going to suffocate her, she began writing-or trying to. After some time alternately shaking the fountain-pen and scribbling with it to no effect, she burst out "Oh, this silly thing! I wish Jonathan didn't make me use it. I know it looks refined, but it doesn't write! Pilár, have you got a biro?"

Pilár silently produced a blue ballpoint from her mistress' handbag and passed it over. Poppy wrote rapidly and then signed her name with a flourish so vigorous that it knocked a little ceramic owl onto the floor, where it broke. Pilár darted forward to pick up the pieces. "Mrs Fea," she exclaimed, "we're terribly sorry-"

"Don't worry," Poppy said breezily, tearing the cheque out, "the cheque will cover that." She wiggled over to the draper, once again monarch of all she surveyed, and handed it over.

Mrs Fea looked at the cheque, gasped, looked again, and said "Yes. Yes, it will!"

Poppy beamed: she had been reminded again of her superior social position. "I'm so glad. Pilár, bring Topsy with you, and let's go on to the dressmaker." She left as if she would like to stride out commandingly, but it wasn't possible in that skirt and those shoes: she had to settle for a commanding teeter.

Pilár picked up the overweight Peke from where it had been lying torpid on the floor throughout, and followed her. Mrs Fea stopped her at the door, saying "What about the bra and girdle?"

"Please keep them here," Pilár replied. "We can't carry them about in the street. I'll collect them later."

"Come on, Pilár!" Poppy shouted from the landing. "I want you to go down first, and I want Topsy."

When she left the draper's shop Poppy fell to admiring her reflection in the window again, until she noticed Mrs Fea giving her a slightly odd look from inside. "Well!", she said briskly, "let's go on to the dressmaker."

Without a word Pilár walked round the Mercedes to the passenger side and opened the door. "No, no!" Poppy chided her. I want to walk."

"In those shoes, Mrs Backscue?"

"I'm used to them. I don't want to sit down until I'm a bit more used to the new corselette. Anyway, I want to see if I look as good to other people, see what the locals think. You follow me in the car."

She set off down the narrow pavement, her stilettos clicking precisely; then Pilár's voice called her back. "Do you want Topsy, Mrs Backscue?"

"Oh, of course! I shouldn't forget about you, sweetie, should I?" She clicked back and smothered the fat little Peke in kisses. "Where's her lead?" Pilár, thinking ahead, was already handing it over. Poppy struggled to clip it to the dog's collar, hampered by her long nails, then gave up and said "You do it, Pilár." Since Pilár was already holding the dog this wasn't easy, but she did manage it. She lowered the fat little dog to the ground and handed the lead over to her mistress.

"You can look particularly cute walking a dog," Poppy said with a mischievous grin. "And you can look refined too. Watch this-"

She put her shoulders back and her nose in the air, lowered her eyelids as if regarding the village with contempt, and extended her right forearm straight out from the elbow. The lead she held between her finger and thumb, her little finger carefully extended. With a more vigorous dog it would have been asking for trouble, but there was no risk of Topsy running away: it was much more likely that she would refuse to move. Poppy, however, ignored the paradox of walking a dog which seemed to have become part of the pavement. She was doing her best to look haughty. It wasn't really a look that suited her, but putting her head back in that way did help to smooth that place under her chin where it sometimes looked as if things were growing a little baggy. Anyway, they were Lord and Lady of the Manor now, or near as dammit: the locals ought to appreciate her position. It was a thought that made her smile.

"Come on, Topsy!" she said in her best attempt at a posh accent, and set off. Topsy remained where she was, and Poppy had to come back for her and tug at the lead. Nothing happened. Finally Pilár had to be summoned to wake the dog up and set it on its feet, and then at last Poppy was able to start her royal progress through the village. She set off at her most commanding wiggle, and Pilár followed with the Mercedes in first gear.

It was a shame, in a way, that they had left London. Poppy had enjoyed the attention she got walking down Oxford Street or Knightsbridge, where even among the glamorous women of the metropolis she stood out. She knew, though she would never admit it, that there were more beautiful women in the crowds, but she would have sworn blind that there was none more outright sexy. She might just have been right: dressed to the nines in her favourite style, she was an unforgettable sight. The impossibly high heels would have made any woman walk with her behind stuck out: with a behind the size and shape of Poppy's (at least, when it was under the proper control from corsetry) the results were enough to make a man's eyes start from his head. That was just the start of it, though: add on the fabric of the skirt straining around that amazing bottom and her generously curved hips, the desperate wiggle which was the closest she could come to walking in her too-tight skirt and too-high heels, the breathless constriction of her waist throwing the curves above and below it into sharp relief, the more than skin-tight jacket outlining her hourglass figure, the tremendous bust, now pushed up and out by the tight new corselette, threatening to burst out from under her suit, the glamorous jewellery, the pretty face with its perfect make-up, the enchanting blonde curls...any audience would have given her a round of applause just for walking on like that. It was frustrating that, at ten o'clock on a quiet summer morning, the village couldn't provide her with an audience at all.

Poppy teetered briskly on, the clicking of her shoes echoing from the houses built so close onto the quiet street, much louder than the quiet purr of the Mercedes' engine as Pilár followed patiently in bottom gear. Then she rounded a corner and her prayers were answered: two men were at work re-thatching the roof on one of the picturesque cottages which were such a feature of this district, and so zealously protected against modernisation by the tyrants of Planning Permission. They were making quite a bit of noise, one of them climbing the ladder with a bundle of straw or whatever it was on his shoulder, the other sitting on the roof and chopping away with a hook. As she tapped closer, Poppy saw that, though the thatcher on the roof was a middle-aged man in a flat cap, the one on the ladder was younger and quite dishy: wearing just a vest, his arms tanned, muscular, and glistening with sweat. He had his back to her at the moment, but any man worth bothering about knew that the quick tap of stiletto heels was a warning to look up and take some notice...

She was stern with herself: she didn't look. She kept on walking in her haughty pose, watching Topsy waddling along the pavement in front of her as if nothing else mattered. She was coming level with the cottage now, and she noticed that the noise of the older thatcher hacking away at the roof had stopped. Then a voice with a rural accent said powerfully "Holy shit!"

There was a rustle and a heavy thump on her right. Poppy, despite herself, jumped and looked round. Her delicate balance on her delicate shoes was affected, and she had to lean on the wall of the house to make sure she didn't fall. As for the noise: the young thatcher on the ladder had been so bedazzled by her glamour and sex appeal that he had dropped the bundle he was carrying up to the roof. Now he was staring at her open-mouthed.

"Afternoon, ma'am," the older thatcher said politely, touching his cap. "I 'ope this young fool 'ere didn't startle you."

"No, thank you," Poppy said, trying to look aristocratic and dignified. "I'm quite all right." And then she deigned to treat the young thatcher to a smile that nearly knocked him off the ladder before setting off again.

Pilár had been waiting with the car in neutral until Poppy finished showing off to the locals: now she followed her again at walking pace, or at her mistress's walking pace, which owing to the too-tight skirt and too-high heels was slower than most people, for all the effort Poppy put into it. At the next junction Poppy stopped again, and Pilár decorously braked to a halt a few yards behind her. If Mrs Backscue wanted to practise her allure again, she didn't want another woman near her to distract attention, even one who was so obviously not competition...

Poppy stood at the corner some time, looking left and right, and frowning. Finally she turned round and snapped "Oh, come on, Pilár! I don't know which way it is from here!"

"Turn right, cross the road, and it's number 15, Mrs Backscue."

"Oh, yes, of course. You're so good at remembering these things. I never can. I suppose it's because I have so many other important things to think about...Come along, Topsy." And with some effort she restored her dog to life from where it had collapsed again, wobbled over the road, and continued her outrageously sexy progress on the other side. She was trying to walk faster now, to cover her embarrassment, and the result was that she just wiggled more than ever.

It wasn't far to the house where the dressmaker worked in her spare time, but of course if it had been Poppy would never have chosen to walk in that outfit. When she had rung the doorbell, with her knuckle to avoid damaging her nails, she turned to Pilár lurking in the Mercedes. "Come here and take Topsy," she said. "I want her to know she's loved."

"Yes, Mrs Backscue." Pilár left the car, setting the alarm, and picked up the fat little dog. "Would you like to hold her?"

"Why on earth should I want to do that? Look at the state of her paws! She'll get mud all over me. Do you know how much this suit cost?"

Pilár had wilted slightly under this tirade. "I just thought," she answered weakly, "as she's your dog, you might want to make sure she knows you love her too."

"Of course I love her! She doesn't need me to carry her about and feed her and play with her to know that. Do you really think, just because I ask you to carry her once in a while, she might love you better? You don't deserve it. I may not be the one who feeds her, but-"

The door opened. "Ah, Mrs Backscue," said the skinny, sandy-haired woman behind it. "I was expecting you a little earlier. I'm sorry about the delay."

"So you should be!" Poppy said, relieved to transfer her anger to a less tricky subject. Really, I've been waiting out here for ages! You'd think the amount I'm paying you-"

She broke off as the vehemence of her argument caused the overstrained top button of her jacket to pop off, bouncing against the dressmaker's own much flatter chest and falling to the floor. Poppy was momentarily rendered speechless. Pilár hurried up behind. "It's all right," she reassured the dressmaker, "it's always happening." She squatted down to collect the button, putting Topsy down again, and then the three went inside with the Peke on the lead.

Mrs Rose, the dressmaker, was no professional with a shop: she worked privately from home, which was why Poppy felt she should be grateful for business. She had charged extra for this job, for several reasons she had stated on the invoice-the complexity of the pattern, the difficulty of fitting it to an uninhabited undergarment, the need to take special care with reinforcements in vulnerable areas-and one she had kept private, which was the personality of the client. "Are you sure you've finished?"

"That's why I rang you up to tell you, Mrs Backscue."

"Only I don't have time to come in for a lot of fittings. I have a very busy schedule, you know."

"I'm sure you do, Mrs Backscue."

"And you made sure you fitted it exactly to my new corselette?"

"I was round there every evening, Mrs Backscue. As Hilda was doing her alterations, so I was doing my fittings. It's exactly right."

"I don't just want it right, I want it tight. I want to show off my figure. Did you remember to do it like that?"

"It's as tight as decently possible, Mrs Backscue."

Poppy looked at her very hard. "I don't want to look decent," she said. "I want to look ready to start a riot."

Mrs Rose took a deep breath. "Well, Mrs Backscue, why don't you try it on and see what it looks like before you decide I haven't done it right?"

Poppy came to a halt in mid-rant, panting slightly from the effort of maintaining a high level of emotion within a very tight corselette. "Yes," she said. "Yes, that's a good idea. Where is it?"

"I have it through in the kitchen, but I thought you'd like to try it on in my bedroom. It's the only room with a long mirror-"

"Why do I have to keep on going up stairs today?" Poppy complained. "I'm not dressed for it. You should have brought the mirror downstairs for me."

"I can't really do that, Mrs Backscue: it's set into the door of the wardrobe."

"Oh. Well," as Mrs Rose went through to the kitchen and came back with something made of brightly patterned cloth, "if you're going to work with me a lot you'll have to do something about it. Get a proper long mirror and set it up downstairs."

"I'll have to see about that," Mrs Rose replied, "when I can afford it. Please follow me."

They headed up the stairs in single file: Mrs Rose first, then Poppy still out of breath and going half sideways because her skirt didn't allow her to raise her knees, then Pilár holding the dog and the smart little clutch bag that contained Poppy's all-important chequebook and credit cards. As she followed her mistress up the stairs, Pilár was treated to the site of Poppy's magnificently convex behind, coated in straining fabric, wiggling to and fro in her face. A man in that position would have wanted the stairs to go on forever, but Pilár wasn't that way inclined. She looked at the Lycra panels clearly outlined beneath the too-tight skirt and hoped that Poppy hadn't gone too far again.

Upstairs in the bedroom Mrs Rose drew the curtains: she hadn't the advantage of a house on the edge of the village, and she knew that though plenty of the local men fantasised about seeing Mrs Backscue with her clothes off, some at least would have been rather alarmed by the results. Pilár helped her off with the jacket-"Have you got that button that popped?" "Yes, Mrs Backscue. It's in your handbag."-and then Mrs Rose joined her to free Poppy's over-luxuriant hips from her straitjacket of a skirt. When at last it was down and she had stepped out of it Poppy admired her reflection in the wardrobe mirror. It wasn't a floor-length mirror, and it was quite hard to fit all of her curves into it at one time, but she could see enough to give her a pleasant feeling. "Look!" she boasted. "Don't I look fabulous?"

"I'm sure you do, Mrs Backscue," Pilár said obediently. She had learned quite quickly that her duties included not just dressing and undressing her mistress, taking care of her clothes, and handling all the little jobs that Poppy found boring, but flattering her as well. "You'll look even better with the new dress, though."

"Oh, yes. Let's try it. Come on, quick!"

Mrs Rose unfolded the dress. It was a basically simple design, a plain sheath with straps over the shoulders broad enough to hide the heavy straps that supported Poppy's corselette, made up in white cotton printed with a bold pattern of dark red roses.

"It's very pretty," Pilár said dutifully.

"Of course it is. That's why I picked it. It's lovely having clothes made for you. I could never afford it when I was little," she continued, as she stepped into the dress which Mrs Rose was holding out for her. "We were poor-not like Philippines poor, I mean, we would have been rich compared to your family, Pilár, but my parents couldn't afford new clothes for me every year, so..."

"Please keep your ankles together, Mrs Backscue, or we'll never pull the dress up!"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Anyway, I was a late developer, and when I was fifteen I was so skinny I could still wear the school uniform I'd had when I was twelve. I looked at the other girls and..."

"Pilár, would you help me pull, please? I can't do this by myself."

"I'm here."

"...envied the ones who had waists and tits and hips, and I thought I'd never be like them. I didn't have anything the boys wanted. Then suddenly it just all started swelling up and bursting out and by the time I was sixteen I was all curves. I've been like that ever since..."

"This isn't working. Let's try another way."

"...but now I can afford clothes that fit the way I want them to. Back then my parents said they couldn't get me a new school uniform, so I had to wear the one I'd had for four years. It was really hard to get into it by then..."

"Pilár, hold the dress up and don't let it slip. I don't want to lose any of the ground we've gained. I have to fetch the pliers."

"...I had to pull and pull to fasten my blouse, and jump up and down to get my skirts on. The thing was, though, that the boys liked it when I was almost bursting out of my clothes. They couldn't keep their eyes off me. There was this time when I was called to do a reading in front of the school at assembly. I came up to the stage on the morning and the vicar they had in took one look at me and said 'She can't read from the Bible looking like that!' So the headmaster said to me 'Poppy, why are you dressed like that? Don't you have anything that fits properly?' and I told him 'No, sir, we haven't got the money to buy a new uniform every year, I just have to make do with the one I've got.' And he had a word with my class teacher and she told him it was true, so they just had to let me go on with it. Anyway, the English teacher was..."

"Here we are. Now, you pull the dress together and I'll use the pliers."

"Maybe I should use the pliers, Mrs Rose. I'm used to doing this."

"All right."

"...very keen on correct speech, so he said I had to project my voice, imagine I was sending it right to the back of the hall, so I stood up there and-hey! You nearly knocked me over!"

"I'm sorry, Mrs Backscue, this dress is very difficult. The zip's stuck."

"I told you to fit it exactly to the corselette!"

"I did!"

"Then why is it too tight?"

"Are you sure this is the same corselette, Mrs Backscue?"

"Of course it is! Didn't you see it being altered? It's the only one with a plunge neckline there is! You just don't know how to measure, that's all. If you think I'm paying for this-"

"Mrs Backscue," Pilár interrupted diplomatically, "I'm sure she measured it correctly. Your corselette has stretched, that's all."

"But I thought it was meant to be firm!"

"It's firm, Mrs Backscue, but it isn't rigid. Of course it's going to stretch a bit when you wear it as tight as that."

"Mm. I suppose. Maybe. I'm not very satisfied, though. You'd better make a good job of this. I don't want to stand here all day."

"I'm sure we'll be finished soon," Pilár said. "In the meantime, why don't you carry on telling us about what happened to you at school? It's very interesting!"

Poppy was not good at detecting sarcasm, and very fond of talking about herself: she needed no more prompting. "Where was I? Oh, the English teacher said I had to project my voice right to the back of the assembly hall, so I went up and stood in front of the lectern and took a deep breath, and two buttons popped off my blouse. I started my reading then, but the boys in the hall were applauding so loudly nobody could hear what I was saying, and by the time they'd shut up..."

"Pull harder, please, Mrs Rose."

"I'm doing my best. Do you think this is going to work?"

"Yes, if we have time."

"...the Headmaster had come out and dragged me off the stage. After that they had a whip round or something and sent me to the shops to buy a new uniform. The thing was, though, I'd got used to wearing a really tight blouse and skirt, and I found I quite liked the feeling, actually. So I didn't get anything in my own size..."

"Well done, Pilár. Will it be easier when you get as far as the waist?"

"No."

"...and when the teacher who was escorting me saw what I'd chosen she sent me right back and had me take the next size up. I had to do what she said because she was paying, but..."

"Another, what, six inches? I wish I'd altered this dress to give it a low back-there wouldn't be so much to zip."

"You couldn't do that, Mrs Rose: her corselette would show. Please, just keep pulling."

"...it didn't make any difference anyway. We had compulsory sewing classes in school, and I just took the new blouses and skirts in until they were just as tight as the old ones. Well, nearly as tight. It was a bit of a nuisance to be always popping buttons. Anyway, I found that it felt good, and it looked great, so I stayed with that style. When I left school I went to work for a chiropodist, and they had a nurse type of uniform for the receptionist. It was pretty dull, but I ordered it..."

"Are you making any progress, Pilár?"

"A little. You have to be patient. I'm used to this."

"...two sizes too small, and then took it in a bit. It was great, because it zipped up the front, so I could leave the zip undone a little and it pushed my tits up and gave me terrific cleavage. The chiropodist didn't mind because his patients liked it, and more people came to him after I went to work there. Anyway, one day..."

"Please, keep pulling on the dress, Mrs Rose, or I can't get the zip up!"

"I am pulling! The trouble is, my arms are getting tired."

"...he had a patient who wanted her big toes realigned, so he referred her to Jonathan Backscue. He came in and took one look at me and knew that he needed someone like me in his own clinic. He offered me five times what I was getting in Croydon to work for him in Harley Street, and he paid off the chiropodist to compensate for the loss of business too, and that's how I ended up working for an eminent cosmetic surgeon. And of course he couldn't resist me, and ended up marrying me." Poppy concluded her story with an extremely self-satisfied smile, and only then returned to reality. "Have you finished?"

"Yes, Mrs Backscue. Please, look in the mirror and tell me what you think of my work."

Poppy didn't require much encouragement to admire her reflection again. The plain print dress was plain no longer, now that it was packed to bursting point with her outrageous curves. Mrs Rose's careful seaming and shaping meant that it followed her neatly-nipped waist as it was constricted by the powerful corselette, gripped her shapely hips, and pulled back in below her ambitious bottom as well as above it, emphasising its tremendous convex arc. The skirt below tapered to mid-thigh-length, and right to the hem was skin-tight or tighter: it was definitely a skirt for wiggling in. Above the waist the dress was artfully designed to have almost but not quite enough room for her more than ample breasts, and the low-dipping neckline displayed the cleavage of which she was so proud. The corselette pushed her breasts up and out and together, and they quivered ecstatically with every movement. Even when she was still, they surged up and down as she struggled to collect enough air within her too-tight foundations. The candy-pink lipstick and matching earrings went perfectly with the red and white print of the dress, as did her scarlet sandals: the reason for the choice was clear at last. Even by her exacting standards, Poppy Backscue looked devastating.

She spent a couple of minutes looking at herself in the mirror, trying this angle and that. "This mirror isn't good enough," she complained. "You need one with wings so that I can see the back view properly. Pilár, how do I look from behind?"

"Tight and curvy, Mrs Backscue."

Poppy caressed the straining fabric over her buttocks with her hands. "Does my bum look big in this?"

"Very big indeed, Mrs Backscue."

"Good. Does it stick out?"

"A long way out, Mrs Backscue. When the rest of you has left the room, your bum will still be waving goodbye."

"That's what I wanted. Jonathan loved my bum in a tight skirt or dress. It was what drew him to me most, I think. I mean, I've got a pretty face, gorgeous eyes, lovely hair, an amazing bosom, good legs, dainty hands and feet, luscious hips and a neat waist, but I think my bum is actually my best feature. I have to dress to emphasise it. It looks like the corselette was a good choice, doesn't it? It shapes but doesn't flatten too much."

"You are in perfect shape, Mrs Backscue."

"I am, aren't I? And I forgive you, Mrs Rose," she said grandly, "for messing up the measurements. Maybe the dress is too tight, but after all I've always looked my best in too-tight dresses. It's a happy accident. Jonathan's going to love it. I'd like to see him ignore me in this dress!"

Her tone had changed: from self-congratulation a shade of bitterness had crept in. Pilár felt it was time to change the subject. "Mrs Rose, do you want to be paid on the spot like the draper, or do you...?"

"No, I'll send in a bill. I need prompt payment, of course."

"Don't worry. Mrs Backscue always pays bills promptly if she's satisfied. Are you satisfied, Mrs Backscue?"

"Very. Oh, there's just one more thing." With tiny wiggling steps Poppy made her way over to the bed and turned her back to it. Mouth open, eyes wide, face tense with concentration, obviously holding her breath, she lowered herself slowly onto the edge of the mattress. When her ample behind touched the bedspread she slowly allowed her tense thigh muscles to relax, gradually sinking into the mattress until it was bearing all of her weight. She looked nervously up at Pilár.

"Did you hear anything?"

"Only the springs creaking, Mrs Backscue. Do you want me to help you up?"

"Yes, please."

Pilár reached out and grasped the elbow of the pale, plump arm Poppy held out towards her. She pulled firmly, and Poppy rose to her feet. At once her ankles began their frantic wobbling as they struggled to keep her upright in shoes that should have made balancing a physical impossibility. When Poppy was sure she was as stable as she could be she let go of Pilár's arm and took a few small steps forward. "Have a look," she urged. Pilár bent down and, to Mrs Rose's amazement, inspected her mistress's large round arse from point-blank range. It looked most disrespectful, yet it was clearly what Poppy wanted. "Can you see anything?" she asked nervously.

"Nothing that shouldn't be there, Mrs Backscue."

"The seams are holding?"

"They are."

"I reinforced them," Mrs Rose put in. "I've seen you round the town and I knew that you like to, well, wear things a little tighter than most people do..."

"A lot tighter," Poppy said with a mischievous look. "Well, I think you've done better than I expected, Mrs Rose. Send your bill to the Hall and we'll pay you in full. I'll come back to you again if this dress does what I want it to."

"What do you want it to do?"

"That's private," Poppy said gaily, and clattered out. Pilár politely said goodbye to the dressmaker, picked up the indolent Peke and her mistress's designer suit, and followed.

On the way back through the charming English countryside Poppy had no time for the view. She inspected what she could of herself in the vanity mirror for the passenger's seat, then put a hand to her concave stomach and sighed. "I miss my waist, Pilár," she said. "That's my biggest problem. I used to have this hourglass figure with a tiny waist, and it looked so sexy in tight dresses. Now I can't get that shape back without a really tight girdle or corselette. Oh, it's worthwhile, but it's hard work sometimes."

"You look wonderful, Mrs Backscue, supremely sexy, and that's what matters," Pilár said soothingly.

"I know," Poppy said, beaming. "All the same, I wish Jonathan would give me a tummy tuck or liposuction or something. I've asked him, but he says he doesn't like taking his work home with him. I think that's just silly."

"I suppose," Pilár said, "that it's different to have someone he loves stretched out on the operating table and cut her open. Maybe he just loves you too much to do that to you."

"Maybe," Poppy said, mollified but not entirely satisfied.

They drove on in silence for some time, while Pilár tried to think of something that might put her employer into a better mood. Things were a little tricky at the moment, and she didn't want Mrs Backscue throwing a tantrum on her shift. After a while she ventured "That's a really great dress, Mrs Backscue. I'm sure your husband will love it. I don't think you've ever looked better."

"Oh, I don't know! I wish I could have had a dress like this when I was younger, though. You know I was talking about how I worked for the chiropodist? Well, when Jonathan hired me from there he beat about the bush for a while before explaining that he expected me to wear a tight uniform when I was the receptionist in the Harley Street clinic. He thought I might want to report him to some busybody or other for being sexist, but in fact I thought it was great. The uniform was much better cut and better quality, and it was made to fit me-it was the first time I'd ever had that done for me. Of course I got into an argument with the fitter, because she said it was too tight and I said it wasn't tight enough. She kept telling me there were all these things nurses have to do which wouldn't be practical in such a tight dress, and I kept saying that I wasn't a nurse, I was a receptionist, and I just had to sit behind a desk or occasionally get up to take messages and look things up in files. She wouldn't listen to me, and finally I had to call up Jonathan and ask him to explain. He was with a patient, but his secretary rang back after the consultation, and he spoke to me. When I'd told him about it he asked to talk to the fitter, and I listened. I could hear his voice on the other end: 'You are there to do what Miss Fluck wants, not to argue with her. She is to have her uniform as tight as she likes.' So then I was really in charge, and I had her take it in even further, just to prove the point. We did have to let it out a bit because the skirt burst when I sat down, but after she had mended and reinforced and adjusted it we ended up with the tightest fit the seams could stand. It looked great."

"Like your new dress, Mrs Backscue?"

"Well, not so attractive. It was basically a nurse's uniform, of course, so it had long sleeves and a zip up the front. It was meant to have a high neckline too, of course, but I only pulled the zip up part of the way, and nobody ever complained. Nobody who mattered, I mean, some of the other secretarial staff and nurses made rude remarks, but I was working for Dr Backscue himself and that meant nobody could bully me. He said I was good for business. After all, people were coming into the clinic to look better, and I was a good advertisement! The big joke was, they probably thought he'd worked me over. He told me several women asked him if he'd done my implants, and he always had to say 'Do you like them? Is that what you're looking for?' because of course they weren't implants at all!"

Pilár knew the right approach to take with this one, like a comedian's straight partner feeding a line. "Of course, implants could never look that good."

"That's true enough! But I gave them something to admire, something to hope for. Anyway, Jonathan enjoyed having me around. He was always finding things I had to look for in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet next to his desk. Once the back seam of my uniform split while I was doing it, but I pretended not to notice until he told me about it. Then there was the problem of how to sew it up. Nobody wanted to help me, but in the end he told one of the other staff to do it, and she wasn't a bit nice about it. After that he said he felt he had to take me out to dinner to make up for the hard time I'd had at work, and well, one thing led to another, and another led to the registry office. Via the divorce court, I mean. Anyway, she wasn't good enough for him. He needed a beautiful wife with a fabulous body. He couldn't claim to be making everyone else beautiful and go around with some boring old middle-aged middle-class bag. He needed me. He used to tell me that all the time. At first," she finished rather sadly.

The grand carriage sweep in front of the Hall, soon to be the Clinic, was covered in gravel: very authentic, but difficult for someone who dressed like Poppy. When Pilár had helped her out of the Mercedes she set off towards the house extremely slowly, her arms out from the elbows to help her balance. Without being asked, Pilár followed a step or two behind. If Mrs Backscue fell over, all sorts of disasters might follow: lost earrings, snapped heels, even a burst seam somewhere. Besides, she couldn't possibly get up by herself. At the same time, to admit this would have been embarrassing: not a word was said, in the pretence that Poppy was quite capable of making her own way to the house, like any grown woman, and Pilár only behind her by chance. Only when she had reached the safety of the stone steps did Poppy acknowledge her presence. "Put the car away, Pilár," she said, "then bring Topsy and my suit in, and find me."

"Where will you be, Mrs Backscue?"

"I don't know. Wherever Jonathan is."

Pilár nodded and set off. It was a compliment to her in a way that Poppy trusted her with a car as expensive as that, but it was hardly surprising. A woman with Poppy's taste in clothes was almost forced to choose between driving and wearing five-inch stilettos and a tight skirt, and as far as Poppy was concerned driving was the loser. She had better things to do with her time, anyway. After being stopped by the police once for putting on eyeshadow in the fast lane of a motorway, she had decided it was easier to let someone else take the wheel. What was the point in having an assistant, after all, if she didn't do things for you?

The stairs were wide and shallow, designed for ladies in the days of Gracious Living, when high fashion prescribed outfits hardly more practical than Poppy favoured today. Poppy didn't like stairs much, though they had their advantages: following her upstairs was pretty much guaranteed to reduce any man's mind to porridge. The trouble was that stairs didn't really allow for the difficulty of raising your knees ahead of you in a really tight skirt. Really, she preferred to ride in a lift: Jonathan had promised to install one in the Hall as part of the adaptations, and she looked forward to it. In the meantime, though, it was at least a relief that the steps up to her own front door were ones she could manage.

Once there would have been a footman on duty to let her in, but though the Hall now had something of a staff again Dr Jonathan Backscue had no pretence to be a country squire with an army of servants. Poppy unlocked the door and went straight inside, not locking it again behind her: Pilár could do that. That Pilár had gone round the back with the car and might come in through another door had not occurred to her, nor would she have blamed herself if it had. Pilár's job was to do the things that her mistress couldn't or didn't want to do, and anything she failed to pick up on the way was her own problem. Mostly she did very well, but sometimes she let her mistress down. Just now, for instance, Poppy's instinct on finding her husband was to ask Pilár where he was, but Pilár hadn't come back yet. With a rather fetching frown at the thought she had to do everything herself, Poppy set off to look for him.

She searched everywhere downstairs first. She looked at what were to be the kitchens, and the storerooms, and the operating theatre, and the private ward rooms for patients recovering, and she met some of the workmen busy with the conversions, but not Jonathan. The workmen, however, were helpful: they wolf-whistled at her, which always made her feel sexy, and they said they thought Dr Backscue was in his office. That, alas, meant going upstairs. It wouldn't have been so bad if Jonathan was walking behind her to be hypnotised by the movements of her bum in its straining skirt, but there was nobody to appreciate it. Oh, well, at least she met Pilár in the hall, and with her Topsy. She had Pilár put the Peke down, and after Topsy had been woken and convinced she was back home, she consented to waddle after her mistress. Poppy struggled up the stairs, accompanied by the dog, and Pilár followed at a respectful distance carrying Poppy's handbag and the neatly folded cashmere suit. It was not her place to be present at a private conversation between husband and wife; at the same time, she knew it was better to stay fairly close at hand, in case Poppy wanted her suddenly.

The good doctor's "office" had in fact once been an important bedroom, looking out over the drive, the grounds, and the country beyond. It had been adapted with great dignity, and the adjacent dressing-room turned into an outer office for his secretary. That capable young woman looked up as Poppy came in and then returned to filing her nails. She was in her early twenties, and Poppy didn't think much of her appearance: straight blonde hair unimaginatively styled, large blue eyes that rather stuck out, skinny, small tits, no waist, no hips, no bottom. She also suspected her of having designs on Jonathan. Though she didn't like to admit it to herself, she had one great private fear: a man who had once thrown his wife over for his receptionist might do it twice. Any secretary who stayed too long and became too friendly was a threat: as a result, Poppy was always trying to get them fired. Certainly she wasn't going to give this one the privilege of suggesting she had the right to forbid Mrs Backscue herself to visit her husband. Everyone else had to ask first: Poppy merely handed the secretary a withering look, which was not noticed as the young woman was pointedly looking somewhere else, and barged in.

Jonathan's antique oak desk had been placed in front of the window, where the light fell full on his interviewee, and where he himself was reduced to an awesome silhouette, a Godlike figure seeming enthroned in the sky. He was on the telephone. Though he could not possibly have known she was coming, Poppy took this as an insult. "Jonathan?"

Her husband covered the mouthpiece briefly. "Not now, Poppy."

Poppy put her hands on her hips, an attitude which she knew drew attention to their impressive form and their contrast with her beautifully constricted waist. "It's always 'not now' with you these days!"

"Excuse me a moment," Jonathan said with exquisite politeness to the caller, and pressed Hold. "This is a very important call. The bank-"

"Did you marry the bank, or me?"

Jonathan closed his eyes for a moment, as if the question pained him. "If I don't deal with the Clinic's finances properly now, the bank might foreclose. Then we'd be bankrupt, and you wouldn't like that, would you?"

"You're just avoiding the issue, like you're avoiding me. You weren't like this when I was working for you back in Harley Street!"

"Things have changed since then, Poppy. I've changed. You've changed."

"You mean you don't love me any more, do you?"

"Of course I still love-"

"You don't think I'm pretty! You don't think I'm sexy! You just hire cute skinny girls so you can look at them all day, because you don't want to look at me!"

"Poppy, don't be ridiculous-"

"And I've gone to all this trouble, I've got this new dress, specially for you, and you don't even want to look at it! You haven't even noticed!"

"Well, now that you mention it, you do look-"

"I look awful, that's what you want to say, isn't it? I look old, and fat, and silly, and you'd rather look at that girl out there instead!" She turned her back: both a suggestion of sulking, and a conscious strategy. She was very proud of her front view, but it was her rear view that really hooked men. However young that girl out in the front office was, Poppy was sure that she would never look this good from behind in a too-tight dress.

She heard Jonathan push back his chair and stand up: at last she had a reaction. Now the thing to do was to play hard to get, just a little, and lure him into an apology. Then she'd get a new diamond bracelet, perhaps, or a meal at a fashionable restaurant where she could show off her new dress. He just had to-

"Poppy, I can see you're upset about something, and whatever it is, I'm sorry. You must see, though, that I can't have a long discussion about it right at this moment!"

Poppy half-turned, presenting her impressive profile. Look at those lovely lady-bumps! was the message. You're not going to get those from some underfed teenager! "Well, if you don't love me, at least Topsy does! We're going to leave you to get on with your precious phone call, and perhaps if you're interested you'll come and see me later. Only I might not be available then. Come on, Topsy, sweetheart, Mummy loves you."

Turning her back on her husband again, she played what should have been her trump card: right in front of him, stockinged legs perfectly straight, she bent over with her luscious rump straight under his nose. It had been the sight of her bending over in her too-tight uniform that he loved so much back in Harley Street: she was sure that in her new dress, with the new corselette beneath it to squeeze everything into shape, the results should be just as good.

Unfortunately, just as she was taking hold of Topsy, it all went wrong. There was a loud yet oddly muffled pop from behind her, followed by an immense ripping sound. Clutching the Peke to her chest, Poppy straightened up with a horrified gasp. "What happened?"

Jonathan raised his eyebrows slightly. "I think your girdle burst."

"But..." Poppy tried desperately for an excuse, "I'm not wearing a girdle!"

"Well, whatever it is, it still burst. It took your new dress with it, I'm afraid."

Poppy searched for a way to turn this to her advantage, failed, and settled for bursting into tears. She would have run out if her outfit had allowed it, but the lower reaches of her too-tight skirt remained intact, and the best she could manage was a rapid teeter. Even on the soft carpets of the Hall, her dramatic stilettos made a lot of noise as she wobbled past the receptionist and out into the corridor: a good thing, really, as otherwise she would have heard Jonathan going back to his phone call with the bank.

Pilár had heard the raised voices, but knew there was no place for her in an argument like that: she kept at a respectful distance, far enough away that she couldn't hear the words. She didn't hear how the argument ended, but she did hear the door slam and Poppy running-or as near as she could come to running, in that outfit-along the landing, accompanied by sobs. That meant her place was with her mistress. She hurried silently along the landing to the open door of the third-best bedroom at the end of the South Wing.

It was as bad as she had feared. Poppy was lying face down amid the finery of the red velvet counterpane, heaving with sobs. Her sumptuous bottom was pointing straight up in the air, somewhat more sumptuous than it had been since Pilár and Mrs Fea helped her into the new corselette. The back seam of her rose print summer dress had burst open, from just below the waist to well below hip level. If it had been as short as her suit skirt, it would have been split right to the hem. The yawning gap exposed not the specially altered corselette, which had evidently burst open at the same time, but a large expanse of Marks & Spencer knickers not quite covering an even larger expanse of rather pudgy flesh. The way it was sticking out straight up was insolently perky, considering how dejected the rest of Poppy was, and it quivered delicately in rhythm with her crying. Topsy was lying, looking vacant, in the middle of the room and making no attempt to comfort her mistress. That, it seemed, was Pilár's job.

Since she didn't know what the argument was about, she couldn't be specific: she sat next to her employer on the bed, stroking her arm and shoulder, and murmuring soothing words. "It's a shame, isn't it...it's not right...you try so hard, and you aren't appreciated..." until the sobbing subsided. Finally Poppy heaved herself up on her elbows and turned over. Her carefully arranged make-up had run copiously down her face, and there were large mascara stains on the pillow: Pilár made a mental note to change the pillow-case some time when Poppy wasn't around. Not, however, when her mistress was going through a crisis and wanted sympathy.

"Oh, Pilár, he doesn't love me any more!"

"Hush, Mrs Backscue, of course he does."

"No, he's going with someone else, I'm sure of it! It might be that skinny bitch secretary, but I haven't caught them at it yet. He's always going away, and he's just not interested in me any more when he's here. I go to so much trouble to look pretty for him, and he doesn't even notice!"

"Oh, he does really, Mrs Backscue. You probably just chose a bad time. You know he's busy, trying to set the clinic up."

"There you go, defending him! It's not fair! He shouldn't be busy for me! I'm the one person he's supposed to have time for!"

Pilár wanted to point out that even if Jonathan were the perfect husband he couldn't always be expected to put Poppy first, but she knew this would be an error. Instead she settled for the anodyne "Just wait a while and it won't look so bad."

"But my dress! My new corselette! They were weeks making them up for me, I spent all that money," Jonathan's money, Pilár observed silently, but said nothing, "on having it all just right, I talked to him for two minutes and now look at it! It's ruined!"

"I'm sure it can be mended, Mrs Backscue. It isn't as if I've never had to sew up a seam for you before."

Poppy sighed bitterly. "Oh, I know, Pilár-it's just-it won't be the same, it won't be new any more, it won't be a surprise. Every time he sees me wearing it he's going to remember me like this. I wanted this to be my super-sexy super-tight summer dress, not the dress I burst open bending over in the office!"

So that was what had happened: showing off her backside to him, no doubt. Poppy should have known, as Pilár or the draper or the dressmaker could all have told her, that it was very much a no-bending type of dress, but if she was desperate for attention she wouldn't have thought of that. The trouble was that most of the time now she was desperate for attention, and it was true enough that she wasn't getting it from her husband. Whether he was having an affair or not Pilár had no idea, but Poppy had a right to be frustrated. It was unfortunate, and typical, that she should approach the problem by means of a too-tight dress and a tantrum instead of trying to sort it out calmly. Lacking any deeper ideas, Pilár decided to resort to a practical distraction. "Come on, let me get that dress off you."

"You might as well cut it off-it's never going to be any good for anything now-"

"I'm sure that's not true, Mrs Backscue. If it's well made, there's a lot that can be done. Come on, stand up and let me unzip you."

The zip was as strained as it had been back at the dressmaker's house, but it was at least slightly easier to pull down than up, and of course Pilár had her trusty pliers to hand. Even over Poppy's behind the tension was still considerable-a testament to how very tight the dress had been, that with the burst seam gaping apart it was still skin tight. Wriggling out of the skirt, though, was not the chore it should have been. When Poppy had stepped out of it Pilár held the dress up and had a look at it. "It's not too bad," she pronounced with relief. "There's plenty of allowance for the seam: I can sew it up again. I've seen much worse. That blue rubber dress you tried-"

"Don't talk about it!" Poppy said swiftly. "I can still hear the noise it made when it exploded. Ugh! All right, put the new dress away and help me off with my corselette."

Pilár hung the dress up in the For Repair section of Poppy's walk-in wardrobe alongside the cashmere suit with the popped button-however hard she worked, she could never quite empty that out-and came back with her pliers to pry down the zip of the corselette. When Poppy, with a sigh of relief, had at last been freed of it Pilár unfastened the stockings and took it off. Poppy rubbed the circulation back into her constricted body and then sat down to wait for her shoes to be removed while Pilár examined the rupture. After a while Poppy noticed the look on her assistant's face and said "Bad, is it?"

Mrs Backscue wasn't the brightest woman Pilár had ever met, but there was no point lying to her about clothes mishaps, of which she had immense experience. "I don't really know, Mrs Backscue. I do know I can't repair it, but perhaps someone else can. I'll take it back to Mrs Fea as soon as possible. I can go later on this afternoon, if you'd like."

"No, don't do that. I want you here...I need company."

Poppy was clearly on the verge of feeling sorry for herself again: understandable in the circumstances, but not a good idea. Pilár sat down on a stool to work on the exquisitely strappy stilettos and searched for a distraction. It was a pity Topsy wasn't more active, as a healthy walk in the grounds with a beloved dog and a few games of fetch might have done a lot of good, but Topsy preferred to be carried and regarded chasing toys as something poor people's dogs did. In any case, she could hardly imagine Poppy playing fetch: the idea of her in her tight suit, struggling across the grass in her five-inch heels, then bending awkwardly down to pick up a stick and bursting her girdle and skirt was ridiculous. Pilár smothered the laugh, not very effectively, and came up with something else. "You might go down to the stables."

"The stables? What for? There's nothing there."

"There is now. Don't you remember Dr Backscue said he was going to have some horses in, in case his patients want to ride?"

Poppy creased her mascara-stained face as she tried to remember. "Maybe. I don't know. I wasn't very interested. I don't want to ride a horse."

"Yes, but you could go and look at them. They're quite sweet animals. I was down there a few minutes ago putting your car away. You can pet them and talk to them and feed them grass."

"I don't need another pet. I've got Topsy," Poppy stated, looking at the overweight Peke slumbering on the thick carpet.

"I don't mean instead of Topsy. I just thought it would be fun to meet another animal."

Poppy looked unenthusiastic-which, Pilár reminded herself, was an improvement on miserable. "Maybe."

Pilár got up from her stool and sat down next to Poppy on the bed, changing her role from Faithful Body Servant to Best Girl Friend. There were times when this was the right thing to do: Poppy was a lonely trophy wife, and lonelier still now that Jonathan had moved out into the country. She leaned close with a conspiratorial smile and said in a low voice "I'll tell you something else: the stableboy is gorgeous!"

"Stableboy?" Poppy said, looking more interested.

"The young man who looks after the horses. A little younger than me, tall, lovely smile, muscular...because he's a rider he wears these skin-tight trousers, jodhpurs I think they're called, and you can see every line of his body. You should at least have a look at him, even if you aren't interested in horses."

"I think I will. Anyway, if Jonathan gets a bit jealous, it might do him some good. Now, I need to look my best..."

And she was off, off again on her endless quest to be beautiful and sexy and unforgettable. With no job, no children and no social life, it was Poppy's only creative outlet. It kept her happy, and she was good at it. For the moment at least, the crisis was averted. Pilár felt more than a little pleased with herself as she saw Poppy sit down at her dressing table and begin applying cold cream to remove her tear-run makeup, as if she had just been caught in the rain. She had to stay around, though: if her mistress's mood was to remain good, her every whim had to be catered for.

"What about the gold lamé strapless micro-minidress, Pilár?"

"I don't think that's really suitable, Mrs Backscue."

"Why not? I want to look sexy for him!"

"Yes, but you don't want to look as if you're trying too hard. If he thinks you're out to pick him up, he might be scared, he might tell Dr Backscue. I think you should go for the sophisticated city wife look, Mrs Backscue."

"Well, if you say so. I won't wear these fuck-me sandals, then. Have I got any classic black court shoes with six-inch heels?"

"Yes, but Mrs Backscue, the path down to the stables isn't all paved, and the ground down there is uneven. I think you might want to try something more practical. I'll find a pair of your low-heeled courts."

"No, Pilár. Three inches just isn't enough if he's as hot a guy as you say. I need five-inch heels if I'm going to look good for him."

"I really don't think that's a good idea, Mrs Backscue. What if you fall? Wouldn't four inches be high enough?"

"Oh, all right. Four and a half inches."

Pilár went into the walk-in wardrobe again, and headed for the rack where Poppy's shoes and boots were carefully arranged according to dressiness and heel height. While she was in there she heard another shout from the bedroom. "And I'll need another bra and girdle!"

"How tight, Mrs Backscue?" Pilár asked, emerging with a pair of vertiginously beautiful court shoes in her hands.

"About as tight as I had this morning. I'll wear the brown cashmere suit, the one I was wearing when I went out. You've brought it back, haven't you?"

"Yes, Mrs Backscue, but there's the popped button to sew on-"

"Damn, I forgot about that. Can you sew it on quickly?"

"I can't be too quick about it, Mrs Backscue. Unless it's good and strong, it'll only pop again."

"Well, do your best."

Pilár had been right, Poppy reflected, as she picked her way down the path to the stables. She usually was, which was annoying. If Poppy had worn her six-inch stilettos, she would have fallen on her arse by now. Even in shoes with a very modest four and a half inch heel, it wasn't easy going. If she enjoyed her visit, she decided, she would demand that Jonathan have a proper concrete path laid, with steps instead of this tricky slope-nice shallow steps suited to pretty shoes and glamorous skirts, not those awful country steps designed for people in green wellies.

The stable block was actually two lines of buildings facing a cobbled courtyard. Poppy had never explored it, even though the cars were kept down here in stables not required for horses: when she rode in a car, it was always brought round to the front of the Hall first. She noticed that the buildings were made of yellow brick with slate roofs, and that in the middle of the further block a little clock-tower stood up above the rooftops, but-a check of her gold and diamond Rolex told her-the clock had stopped. It would be cute, she thought as she made her way down the last slope, arms out and up in a ladylike attempt to keep her balance, to have a tower clock of their own in the Hall. Perhaps it would have a bell and strike the hours. The idea appealed to her...then as she rounded the corner of the nearer block she forgot all about it.

There was one horse out, large and white, and the stableboy Pilár had mentioned was out there doing something with it. Whatever he was doing, it involved stretching out sideways and bending over, working something down the horse's shining coat in great sweeps. He wore the tight stretchy trousers Pilár had mentioned, and a clinging navy-blue T-shirt outlined a well-formed torso and bared muscular arms. He moved with an unconscious grace. If only Jonathan could make men look like that, Poppy found herself thinking, life would be much more fun!

"Hi," she said, with a nervous smile. The young demigod turned round and treated her to a smile so blinding that for a moment she forgot where she was. She stumbled down onto the cobbles and found that a surface of rounded stones several inches across each was even worse than the gravel for balancing in stilettos and a tight skirt. She tottered and flung her arms wide, too overwhelmed by the beauty of the young man facing her and the desperation of the moment to notice the ominous sound of the seams under the arms of the skin-tight jacket ripping. It wasn't enough: top-heavy and unstable with the great mass of plump and well-corseted flesh precariously balanced on tiny shoes, she felt herself begin to fall.

The young man dashed across the cobbles before she could blink. Halfway to the ground, suddenly she felt his arms round her and she was saved. She wasn't standing, but for the moment she didn't want to be. He was looking down at her with concern, and at that instant nothing had ever felt better. Jonathan had swept her off her feet because he was rich and urbane and confident: this young man was just naturally dazzling.

"Are you all right, ma'am?" The rural accent was plain, but not as heavy as some of those she'd heard around the village.

"I am now," Poppy said, her heart fluttering and her bosom heaving. She struggled to slow her breathing: she didn't want to start off her relationship with this fabulous young man by popping her top button again. "Thank you."

"Let me help you up," he said, and did, setting Poppy upright again as if she weighed nothing, which did her ego some good. Pilár knew her mistress didn't like it if she made noises of effort when helping her, so she always tried to keep quiet, but Poppy could tell it was a struggle, and it made her feel fat. This magnificent boy made her feel like a slender young girl again.

There remained the practical problem, though, of balance. Even now that she was standing up again, she simply couldn't keep upright by herself: the ground was just too uneven. "I'm sorry," she said, blushing, "I'm not dressed for this."

"Come over here to the mounting block and you can sit down. May I hold your hand and keep you steady?"

"Please do!" And blushing this time with pleasure and excitement Poppy let him lead her step by tiny wobbling step over the awful cobbles to a truncated flight of three stone steps ending nowhere which was built up against the wall of the stables. Poppy noticed that it was covered in moss and dirt, but she was less concerned about messing up her expensive cashmere suit than she had been earlier when Pilár offered to let her hold Topsy. She sat down with the usual circumspection, lest she overstrain her girdle on the way, and smiling up into the stable-boy's face held onto his hand a little longer than necessary before at last reluctantly letting it go.

"Thank you," she said again, feeling the pleasure of being near him wash through her. For the moment she had forgotten everything else.

"Now, let me guess...you came down from the house. Are you Dr Backscue's wife?"

"Yes. My name's Poppy. I haven't seen you around before."

"I only came here yesterday. The Doctor said he wanted horses in the stable in case the patients want to go riding, and he hired me to look after them. I've heard a lot about you-"

Poppy's heart fluttered again and she clasped her hands to her chest to hold back her bosom, lest its too-rapid motion pop the vulnerable top button again. "I hope it was good!"

"Oh, it was mainly about how pretty and sexy you are, and your amazing clothes..."

Poppy blinked. "Do you think they were right?"

He smiled, and she melted. "They weren't exaggerating. In fact, they didn't go far enough."

"Will we be seeing a lot of you?" Poppy asked, hating herself for sounding too eager but unable to hold back.

"Well, I don't know. I'm not really invited up to the house-"

"I'll invite you to dinner!" Poppy found herself saying, to her surprise.

The stableboy laughed. "I don't think I'd fit in! Anyway, isn't it a bit premature? You don't even know my name yet!"

"Oh! No, I don't. What are you called, then?"

"Justin Pasmore."

Poppy extended her slightly pudgy, very well-manicured, ring-bedecked right hand, and he took it in his ineffably masculine one. "Poppy Backscue. Pleased to meet you." His touch was like being struck by lightning: he let go far too soon.

Justin withdrew his hand gently but firmly despite Poppy's attempts to hold onto it. "Well, Mrs Backscue-"

"Please call me Poppy!"

"I'd rather not, Mrs Backscue, until I know you a bit better. I don't want to annoy your husband by taking liberties." Poppy thought to herself You can take any liberty you want with me, love! and her thoughts briefly strayed in a downright explicit direction before she brought them back under control again. If that was possible, it would take a lot of groundwork first. She couldn't just demand that he take her roughly, here, now, on the cobbles: he would never agree to it.

"So, you don't think you'll be working up at the house? I could find you something do there if you want."

Justin laughed. "No, Mrs Backscue, this is where I belong! I love horses, and I was hired to look after them. I'd feel bad about leaving them. They're my friends already. Look, shall I introduce you to Dockin?" He walked across the cobbled yard to the white horse, which had been snaffling something out of a trough bolted to one of the walls, and taking hold of its halter led it back to the mounting-block. Poppy, who had not seen a horse since the rag-and-bone men in London stopped using them, and who had never been confident about them even then, would have shied away if she had not had her back against a stone wall. Seeing her uneasy Justin said "There's nothing to worry about. She's as nice as pie, aren't you, girl? Give her a tickle behind the ears...that's right," he added, as he brought the horse's head down and Poppy tentatively reached out to stroke her. She didn't get much from the experience: the horse didn't have nice soft fur like her mink coat, and a draught under her arm reminded her of the seams she had split in trying to keep her balance, so she put her hand back straight away. Still, Justin seemed pleased, and that was good. She hoped she could keep that up.

"It's a very pretty horse," she said.

"She," Justin corrected. "Yes, there's something very special about a pure grey mare, isn't there?"

Poppy wondered if there was something wrong with his eyesight, or if he had just given an ageing horse a good going-over with a bumper bottle of peroxide. "But she hasn't got grey hair, she's white!"

"Oh, no! You always call a horse that colour a grey."

Poppy absorbed this information incredulously. "Well, then, what do you call a grey horse?"

"I don't know. I've never seen one." He laughed again. "I know it doesn't make any sense, but that's just the way it is. It takes a lifetime to know everything there is to know about horses. I've come a long way, but I'm just a beginner to some of the old chaps around here. It doesn't take long to fall in love with horses, though, when you spend much time with them. I think Dockin likes you already, and I think she's starting to grow on you too."

This was true to the extent that Poppy was no longer positively worried by the horse: she could see that, at least while Justin had it on a rope, it wasn't going to bite her or whatever horses did to people they didn't like. She could not honestly say, though, that it appealed to her much: she preferred animals a more manageable size, like Topsy. Still, she was hardly going to say that to this magnificent young man. "So, do you spend all your time with her? You won't ever have duties up at the Hall?"

"There are other horses to look after, but yes, I don't see why I should ever have to go up to the Hall myself. Maybe if I was leading the horses out for the guests to ride I'd take them up to the front. They might not want to come down here. That path isn't very nice."

"No, it certainly isn't!" Poppy said with feeling, forbearing to add that however nasty it was it had been worth the effort to meet him. "I'll make sure something is done about it."

"Thank you," Justin said, with another dazzling smile, and suddenly, urgently Poppy knew that she had to see more of this man, or life would not be worth living.

"You'll have to bring the horses up to the house every day," she said impulsively.

"What, do you want to learn to ride, Mrs Backscue?"

Poppy had never had the slightest wish to learn to ride a horse before, but if it had meant she could spend time with Justin Pasmore she would have agreed to learn how to walk on her hands through broken glass. "Well, we have the horses, so why not use them?"

"Well said! I'm so pleased you like Dockin. I thought maybe the people at the Hall were just buying the horses because they felt they had to. It's great to meet someone who's actually interested in riding."

A smile broke across Poppy's face like the sun rising: she was unable to hold it back. "Let's start now!"

"We can't start quite straight away, Mrs Backscue!"

"Why not?" Poppy demanded.

"Well, for one thing, you need to get changed!"

Poppy looked down at the fashionably tight suit and citified stiletto courts, and giggled. "Of course, you're right. I haven't got any riding clothes-I never thought of doing this before. What should I wear?"

"Well, you can't ride in a skirt like that!" They both laughed. "Not but that it looks great on you," and Poppy blushed again, wriggling in pleasure inside her girdle. Jonathan had never made her feel like this! "You need trousers-sturdy trousers. Have you got any jeans?"

"Oh, yes, lots."

"Good. If you take to riding you'll have to buy some jodhpurs like these. There's no point in going for that unless you're sure you're going to take it up. A tweed jacket would be better than one like that. Again, you want something strong. You're in the country now, though you do look great as a city slicker." Poppy beamed, and he went on. "And you need strong shoes-those are too delicate."

"I've got some boots. Leather boots, knee-length. Would that do?"

"Have they got heels?"

"I thought you'd want me to wear flat shoes!" Poppy said, surprised.

"No, it's important that you have heels. The stirrups fit in here," and he stood on one leg, adopting a pose which brought still more muscle groups as yet unseen to Poppy's admiring attention, to point at the notch between the sole and heel of his own leather boots. "If you have completely flat soles your foot tends to slip out of the stirrup, and it isn't safe."

"Oh, OK then. I know just what I should wear," Poppy said, an outfit taking luscious shape in her mind. "I'll go back and change. Will you help me up?"

"Of course," and he did. As he was guiding her across the cobbles-how she loved them now, because they meant he had to hold her!-he added "Don't come back too soon. I've got two horses to saddle up, and that'll take a while?"

"Two horses?"

"Well, you don't want to go riding on your own, do you? If it's your first time, you need me with you!"

"I do! Thank you!"

"So, give me half an hour. Unless you want to come down and watch me putting the tack on."

"No, it'll take me at least that long to get changed."

"What, just to put on a pair of jeans and boots?"

"I have to look my best," Poppy said, smiling. "You'd be surprised."

She had reached the edge of the cobbles, but Justin, to her delight, squired her up the steep first few feet of the path until the going was a little easier. She felt cold and lonely when he let go of her at last, and lingered where she was as he leapt nimbly down to the stable yard again and strode back to the white (no, grey) horse. Poppy made no attempt to leave, but just stood there watching while he led the horse gently into one of the stables, tied it and shut the door on it, then went about other jobs less intelligible to her, until at last he waved goodbye and vanished into a room at the far end of the stable block. The door slammed behind him, and he was gone.

Poppy gave a deep sigh, or tried to. There wasn't room for it in her restrictive high-waisted girdle: everything was displaced upward into the cups of her bra, and that damn top button popped off her jacket for the second time today. She groaned, but there was nothing she could do about it now. Pilár would have to come down later and look for it, preferably when Justin wasn't around. Of course, she owed to Pilár his discovery in the first place-she had never been down here before, and probably never would have if it hadn't been suggested-but now she wanted Justin strictly to herself. With some effort she prised her stiletto heels out of the path, where they had sunk in while she was gazing after him, and set off back to the house. It had seemed a long way when she was coming down, and now it seemed further than ever: she was impatient to change and get back to him, this time to stay. She was not so impatient, though, that she was prepared to cut corners in making herself beautiful for the most beautiful man she had ever met.

"Pilár! Pilár! Where are you?" Poppy skidded in her precarious stilettos across the Hall's marble-floored vestibule, nearly fell, and kicked them off in irritation. She carried on barefoot. "Pilár!"

There was a sound of running footsteps upstairs, and a dark-skinned, dark-eyed, dark-haired face peered over the banisters. "Here I am, Mrs Backscue. What is it?"

"Come and help me change, quick!" Poppy started up the stairs as fast as she could go, which even without the shoes to worry about was not very fast. Pilár ran down the steps two at a time to help her, but Poppy shook her off. "I can get up the stairs by myself, idiot! I'm not an old woman! Go down and fetch my shoes, then come back and help me change. I need jeans."

Pilár scampered down into the hall, picked up the beautiful, expensive, classic court shoes that Poppy had kicked across the hall with shocking disrespect, then hurried back up to join her. "Is anything wrong, Mrs Backscue?"

"No! Just the opposite! Now go upstairs and find me a pair of really tight jeans."

Pilár lingered beside her mistress for a moment. "What happened to the top button of your suit, Mrs Backscue? I'll have to sew it on again--"

"Never mind that now! Stupid bloody thing popped again, what do you think? It's down by the stables somewhere, you'll have to find it, but in the meantime go upstairs and find me some tight jeans."

Pilár looked at her doubtfully and her mouth opened as if she was about to say something: then she clearly concluded now was not the time to make difficulties and ran off.

By the time Poppy reached the door of the third-best bedroom, which Pilár had left standing open, the search was already under way. Drawers were open and clothes were piling up in gaudy heaps on the floor as Pilár went through them like a pig after truffles. Poppy had never seen such a mess, or at least not since she had a maid to tidy up after her.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for your jeans, Mrs Backscue," Pilár said without looking round.

"But why are you flinging all my clothes about?"

"Because there are so many to search through." She stopped, panting, and looked back over her shoulder. "If I do it tidily, I'll be here all day, and Justin will be disappointed, won't he?"

"That's none of your business!" Poppy snapped. Pilár grinned at her and went back to work. "But you haven't answered my question, anyway. Why are you making such a dog's breakfast of my clothes? You put them all in order-you just need to look in the right place."

"There is no right place for jeans, Mrs Backscue," Pilár said, starting on another drawer. "You told me to throw them all away, a few months back."

Reality suddenly descended on Poppy's dream and squashed it. "Oh. I-"

"If you remember," Pilár went on, "you said that it's impossible to buy decent jeans any more. Either they're for skinny girls with a waistline on the hips, which is no good because it shows your girdle-"

"Pilár!"

"-or they're baggy and they don't show off your figure. You said that back in the 1980s they knew how to make jeans that looked good on a woman, but nowadays unless you're an anorexic or don't care what you look like they're unwearable. So you told me to throw all your jeans away. I gave them to Oxfam, I think."

Poppy tiptoed barefoot through the tangle of clothes and sat down carefully on the bed. Of course Pilár was quite right, damn her, and in the heat of the moment she had forgotten. It was perfectly true: young girls' jeans were just disastrous on her, and nothing would induce her to wear baggy trousers. The trouble was that trousers of any description didn't look good on her: these days her luxuriant hips and rear end were much better in a skirt. She had boasted about this to herself at times, interpreting it as a sign that she was just too feminine to wear trousers at all, but now it was a nuisance. She couldn't possibly ride a horse in a tight skirt, and other than that...well, there was her bathrobe, which she liked to wear in the morning to put off the protracted and uncomfortable ritual of cramming her figure into the tight underwear required before any of her clothes would fit, but she could hardly go horse-riding in that. What would Justin think?

Pilár, curiously enough, hadn't given up, but was still searching. "Stop it, Pilár. It's not going to happen."

"No, I think it might, Mrs Backscue," Pilár insisted. "I think there's a pair of your old jeans here somewhere. They'd been pushed to the back of a drawer somewhere, so I missed them when I was clearing the others out of your wardrobe, and I found them again later by accident. I knew I ought to throw them away, but I couldn't be bothered then, so I just hid them away somewhere you wouldn't find them and tell me off about it. I thought I'd do it some other time when I wasn't so busy."

"Where did you put them?"

"Well, that's just it! I hid them, so you wouldn't see them, and I can't find them any more."

"You stupid idiot!"

"You did tell me to throw away all of your jeans," Pilár said reasonably.

"Never mind that now. Find those jeans or you're fired." Pilár went back to work at top speed; Poppy lit a cigarette and lay down flat on the bed to smoke it. It caused problems with the ash, but it was more comfortable than sitting when her underwear was so tight.

Poppy had been staring into space and smoking for nearly ten minutes when Pilár announced happily "Here they are, Mrs Backscue!" Poppy had to push herself upright with her hands: stomach muscles grown lazy with years of too much food, too little exercise, and constant imprisonment in restricting corsetry were no longer capable of pulling her up, especially now that she had gained so much weight. She looked across the room at the beaming Filipina who was holding up a pair of stonewashed jeans.

"I haven't seen stonewashed jeans in years!"

"They're old. I think you must have had them before I came to work for you, Mrs Backscue. I've never seen you wear them."

"Give them here."

Pilár handed the jeans over, and Poppy looked at them with satisfaction. "Now, these are real tight jeans!" she said proudly. "Look at that-zips at the ankles, so you can get them tight right down to the bottom hem. They've even got a pretty little bow at the top of each zip. Isn't that cute? And they come right up to the waist, they don't end on the hip. You can't get jeans like this now, not like when I was young. I mean, not that I'm not young, but, they don't, I mean, it's just stupid because they look so much better like this. And they're worn in, so they should fit me perfectly."

"How long since you wore them last, Mrs Backscue?"

"I think...it's got to be more than ten years since you could buy jeans like this. Maybe more like fifteen."

Pilár was silent for some time before asking cautiously "Doesn't that mean they might be...a little too tight?"

There was that, of course. Not that Poppy liked to admit it, but in the last ten or fifteen years she had put on a little weight...

"Well, it's these or nothing," she concluded briskly. "Find me a long-leg panty-girdle."

Pilár nodded and then went to one of the few chests of drawers she hadn't yet opened. This one was clearly still in its pristine state of order; she found what she was looking for at once. "Is this all right, Mrs Backscue?" she asked, holding it up.

Poppy examined the panty-girdle with distaste. She thought them less attractive and feminine than open-bottomed girdles, and this one was very much functional rather than pretty. It was white, and had only a little lace trim around the thigh cuffs as a perfunctory nod to the necessity for good looks and charm. Otherwise it was all business, the heavy stretch fabric reinforced by a second layer down each side from waist to thigh, keeping up the pressure on troublesome hips, and a similar double reinforcement at the back was designed to force an attention-seeking bottom back to more subdued proportions. It was at the front, though, that the real work had been put in on figure control. Not only was there a broad double-reinforced panel positioned specially to restrain the tummy, but it was reinforced still further by a third layer of fabric, a rigid diamond stiffened with boning to make sure that whatever its natural inclinations, the stomach of any woman who managed to get into it would stay fashionably flat.

If she managed to get into it...

Poppy sighed, or tried to: of course, there wasn't room inside her corsetry. Fortunately there was no top button left on her suit to pop at the surging of her heavy bosom. "Let's do it. Undress me, Pilár."

Pilár helped her up, then peeled her out of the awesomely tight suit and the formidable corsetry beneath it. Poppy waited impatiently while the suit was hung up on the To Be Repaired rack-she hoped Pilár would find the button she popped down by the stables, some time-and the girdle and bra set out to be washed. She produced a less elaborate bra-"The panty-girdle is very high-waisted, Mrs Backscue; you don't need a longline bra with it"-and Poppy bent forward so that her heavy breasts fell into the cups and could be hoisted back up where she felt they belonged. Once her cleavage was in its accustomed place just under her chin she felt better, even though her ungirdled hips and bottom were spreading all over the place. Well, they were about to do something about that now.

Gingerly she stepped into the panty-girdle as Pilár held it out for her, then stood very still as her assistant began pulling it up. It soon became difficult, but she knew better than to blame Pilár for that. This was why she preferred open-bottom girdles and skirts: at least, if you had to struggle, you only had to do it once. With two legs, each was a problem. She stood still and tried to be thin while Pilár fought with each leg alternately. Years ago she had had to do this sort of thing herself, but it was much better to pay someone else to do it for you. Pilár was very capable...

"Could you help me, Mrs Backscue? I think I'm stuck!"

It was the truth, but it was still impolite of her to say so and embarrass her employer. "Don't be stupid, Pilár. You'll manage."

"I really don't think I can do this on my own! Couldn't you pull too?"

"You don't need any help. Anyway, it would ruin my nails."

"I suppose so." Pilár battled on in silence for some time-barring the grunts of effort-and then said "Well, could we ask Dr Backscue to help me?"

"No. I'm cross with him. I don't want to see him. Anyway, he won't have time for me. He never does these days."

"Well, then, we must manage without him." Pilár used her hand to stuff a recalcitrant lump of fat down inside the advancing top edge of the panty-girdle, then looked up at her employer and said "Mrs Backscue, this may take a while."

"I can wait. Justin will wait for me."

Pilár nodded and went back to work. No more was said until the panty-girdle was at last nearly in position, when things were growing particularly difficult. As Pilár reached round behind and tugged up with her hands in an unexpected place Poppy squealed "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry, Mrs Backscue, but I have to get the crotch into position, or we'll never zip up the waist. It has to be just as tight under there as everywhere else."

"Well, mind what you're doing," Poppy grumbled. "If you were a man, that'd almost be grounds for divorce."

Pilár laughed once, tersely, but didn't stop tugging until the girdle was as tight under Poppy's crotch as it was going to go, and each tug was almost lifting her from the ground. Now the last step had come. "Mrs Backscue," she said, addressing herself to the zip which ran from the high waist of the panty-girdle down to her employer's left hip, "please take a deep breath."

Poppy obliged, breathing in and holding it until her eyes bulged, and Pilár went to work on the zip. The designers, foreseeing trouble of this kind, had thoughtfully outfitted it with a tassel of ribbon, so there was no need for undignified struggles with pliers of the kind that so often enlivened Poppy's dressing, but even with that extra grip it was very hard work. It was particularly difficult for Poppy to hold her breath that long, especially with the rising pressure on her waist trying to squeeze it out. Eventually her breath was forced from her in a whoosh, and she said crossly "Pilár!"

"Sorry, Mrs Backscue, but you know how it is."

"Will you be much longer?"

"We're about halfway there."

Poppy nodded and took the deepest breath she could manage, then held it. This time she managed to keep it in until Pilár had at last forced the zip into position, then let it out cautiously. She took another breath with great delicacy, unsure if she would be able to draw enough air in to keep herself going, or if the overstrained girdle would pop, but nothing happened. Breathing shallow and rapid, as usual when trying to make a good impression with the help of extremely tight underwear, she walked over to the long mirror and examined her reflection. "That's good," she said. "The tummy control is very strong," she stroked the boned satin panel down the front of the panty-girdle, "it holds my bottom in and up, and it's squeezing my hips well. I'm going to look pretty sexy."

"The jeans next, Mrs Backscue?"

"Wait a second. What top shall I wear?"

"If I might suggest something, Mrs Backscue, I don't think you should wear one."

"Do you really expect me to go out riding in my bra, Pilár?"

"Of course not! But you often wear a jacket over nothing except your underwear with a suit, and I think you should do that. If you wear a blouse it'll have to be tucked into those jeans. They'll be difficult enough to zip up if there's just you and the girdle inside them. Do you really want to risk making it difficult by adding something else?"

"No. No, you're right, I suppose. All right, let's deal with the jeans."

Unused to Eighties-style tight jeans, Pilár forgot to prepare the ground by unfastening the ankle zips, as a result of which Poppy couldn't even get her feet into them. After a brief panic she realised what had happened and relieved her anxiety by scolding Pilár for her carelessness. With the ankles unzipped they had another try. The jeans were very argumentative, and even bringing them up to knee level took some effort, but at last Pilár was in position to attack the main battleground of Poppy's thighs. Simply pulling won a few more inches, but it wasn't enough. With great misgivings, Poppy did agree to join in, taking two fistfuls of denim and holding them in a way that she hoped wouldn't imperil her nails. She wasn't as strong as Pilár, whose muscles had been developed by several years of forcing a somewhat overweight woman into the clothes she wouldn't admit were now too tight for her, but it helped. The smooth, firmly packed fabric of the panty-girdle helped too: the worn denim slid more smoothly over it than it could have over Poppy's own soft flesh. For all that, though, the panty-girdle was barely capable of compressing Poppy's figure enough to fit inside the old jeans: it was a near thing.

When at last the jeans were in position, with the help of some jumping up and down while four hands yanked the waistband upwards, Poppy had a quick look at her reflection again. The signs were good, though she was far from dressed. Then she lay down heavily on the bed again-it squeaked embarrassingly as she crashed onto the mattress-and bade Pilár fetch the pliers. There was no shame in using pliers on tight jeans: when she was at school, if you could zip up your jeans without them, it proved you weren't trying. Nowadays pliers jeans were out of fashion again, but as far as Poppy was concerned, what was good style never went out. And at least the high-waisted panty-girdle prevented embarrassing things being caught in the zip...

"I'm sorry, Mrs Backscue, I really can't get the zip up any further. Honestly, I've tried!"

"I know you have, Pilár. I wasn't very far away! It's OK, as long as my girdle doesn't show. Do the button."

Pilár lunged at the waistband, then lunged at it again, then again, as time after time the button failed to reach its appointed place. Part of the problem was that, whereas on ordinary tight jeans it would have been possible to reach round behind the button to push it up through the buttonhole, the iron-rigid front panel of Poppy's formidable panty-girdle made this impossible. There was no softness left behind the jeans into which a hand could be pressed, and even a thumb inside the waistband added too much for the jeans to be fastened at all. Finally, working from the outside, Pilár managed to jam them together and force the button through, and then it was done.

She helped Poppy up, perfectly rigid in the ready-to-burst jeans, and then stood back at a respectful distance while her mistress admired her reflection. Fortunately it was a pleasant sight. Standing on tiptoes as ever, for her habit of five-inch and higher heels at all times had reshaped her feet and legs until she could no longer walk in flats, Poppy struck pose after pose, smiling at her image. Though she would never have admitted it, she was secretly pleased Pilár had kept these jeans against her orders. There was a distinct ridge visible under the tight jeans, circling each thigh a few inches above the knee, where her flesh escaped from the even greater pressure of the panty-girdle, but she was able to convince herself that the spectacle of all those lush curves packed into straining denim was much more likely to hold his attention than one small flaw in the middle. The jeans themselves were packed to bursting-point, the flap of material covering the zip strained back by the incredible tension until it stood almost straight out from her crotch, the button almost buried in the creases at the waistband, the tension on the seams pulling to show every single stitch. Not a crease disfigured the near-rigid denim: they were stuffed as full as they could possibly hold, and far fuller than was safe. Some women would have looked at the image in dismay and lamented that the jeans were too tight, but Poppy wasn't so weak-minded. She had worn jeans like this before, with great success. "This is great, Pilár. He's going to be so impressed. This is the way jeans ought to be worn. All those stupid skinny young girls with their low-rise jeans, he's going to forget all about them onc