RetroXotique

By "Mike"

Grace knelt down and helped Beatrice into her 3" high-heeled bedroom slippers and Beatrice was then able to move about the bedroom without aid.

She walked over to the dressing table and sat down. Grace held out a selection of ladies magazines and Beatrice chose one while and began to read while Anne started on the high hair arrangement that had been the fashion up until about three years ago. The hair was first combed down and then tubular pads also known as rats were heavily pinned all around and on top of the head. The hair was then combed back over the rats and pinned with a multitude of pins until it was secured. While Anne arranged the hair, Grace applied the makeup. In Beatrice’s youth, any makeup more than a light dusting of powder had been frowned upon by polite society, but nowadays their were no such restrictions. First came a heavy dusting of powder from her forehead down to her bosom, next came a heavy covering of kohl on her upper and lower lashes, and then a light application rouge on her cheekbones and lastly the dabbing of rose paper on her lips. Eventually

Anne pronounced that she was finished and Beatrice nodded her approval, Beatrice stood and turned to see Grace holding her longest blue evening corset.

"I thought we were wearing my best day corsets for the ceremony"

Anne answered "The master informed us, that he had discussed it with you before you went to your sisters and that you had decided to wear the blue evening corset as you will not be sitting down and you wanted to be your best at the ceremony"

Beatrice had gone away for a week to visit her sister as she had about every six months or so for the past twenty five years for a week ‘sans stays’ or in Beatrice’s case with loose stays, low heels and walking dresses with wide skirts. Before she had gone she and Joseph had discussed her outfit for the ceremony and Beatrice had been pretty sure that she had dissuaded him from the long stays, but evidently not. She turned to Anne, who was fully aware of Beatrice’s problems and asked,

"And was anything else was sent to Mrs Baxtons for the fitting"

A long to time ago Beatrice had complained to Joseph about the amount of time she was spending at fittings for the numerous new costumes that they ordered, Joseph had then designed a lightweight steel fully adjustable dressmakers dummy for Mrs Baxton to use to fit Beatrice’s dresses. The corset and the boots for the costume were sent to Mrs Baxtons and mounted on and under the dummy and then the dress was fitted. This method had proved so successful that Beatrice very rarely had to visit Mrs Baxton’s shop or Mrs Baxton come to the house.

"Just the dress, corset and your highest boots Madame".

Beatrice might have guessed, Joseph had asked for the skirt to be lengthened so that it could be worn with her highest boots, whose heels were hardly suitable for walking in the park. Anne continued,

"And also, the waist of the outfit has been taken in another inch ".

"This is too much", thought Beatrice, "that would make the waist 18", I never wear an 18" waist in the daytime any more, it is hard enough to manage in the evening, and also I have only worn this corset once for a short time on one occasion when it was delivered, if I had known I would be wearing today, I could have worn it for a couple of days to settle it better to my body ".

But she knew that could say nothing in front of Grace and Anne, complaints in front of the servants just was not done and she continued across the bedroom and grasped the bed post while Grace unlaced the short day corset, when it was removed Grace reached under Beatrice’s armpits and took some of her weight while Beatrice herself reached down and lifted her large breasts high up too shoulders while Anne wrapped the stiff evening stays around her body. Anne then reached down and supported Beatrice at the waist holding the corset tight while Grace fastened each hook of the long busk. Once the top of busk was closed, Beatrice could release her breasts which did not fall at all as they were supported by two half cups at the top of the corset. The corset itself was armpit high at the sides and even higher at the front and back.

Beatrice’s breast’s were now of matronly proportions and much larger than when she was young. It had been Joseph’s idea to build the half cups into the rim of her best corsets, he had wanted Beatrice to have the largest ‘pouter pigeon’ effect possible to fulfil the requirements of fashion in the last few years. Beatrice was sure that the cups were too high as her large bosom was now cantilevered out nearly level with her shoulders and a definite line was showing at the top of her breasts. The overall effect was a considerable expanse of white flesh jutting out at an unfeasible horizontal angle from her chest for what seemed like six inches. While Grace laced up the lower busk of the corset, Beatrice asked Anne to measure her bosom. Anne passed a tape measure around the protruding bosom and announced the measurement to be 45".

45 " indeed, Anne was slightly shocked at this revelation, was she really that big, that was 1" bigger than her corseted hips, she decided that she would have to go on a diet as soon as possible.

Now came the lacing, Beatrice had given up on the lacing bar some years back, as her weight had increased (she was now two stones heavier than when she had married Joseph) and the strength in her wrists had weakened she could no longer hang from the lacing bar for the extended amount of time required to lace her down into her most stringent corsets. She had tried holding on to bed post when being laced, but the length of time on her feet in high heels and the increased pressure and jerking required to compel her ever thickening waist down to 18" had become to painful. Her most extended lacings were now carried out lying on the floor. Two cushions had been placed on the floor, one larger and one smaller, Grace and Anne took an arm each and Beatrice was helped down to the floor, the larger cushion supported the corset busk where it indented at her waist and the smaller cushion supported her at breast area, it did not actually support her breasts as they were now so large and pendulous that she could easily push them to each side and let the half cup supports at the top of the corset collapse into the smaller cushion.

Beatrice made herself comfortable as she could and then Grace stood astride her back and started the lacing. First the initial slack was taken out of lacing from top to bottom to pull the corset tight to Beatrice’s body, leaving a 6" gap at the waist and about a 2" gap at the top and bottom, Grace pulled at the waist loops smoothly and easily and took the first 2" out of the lacing by pulling the slack from top and bottom to middle. Beatrice did not mind the compression at waist as it was no where being tight, but was sharply reminded that this was one her most long waisted corsets, as the severe curvature of the bones pushed itself up into her ribs and down onto her hips as it forced her waist into a much longer stem than she normally wore. Beatrice thought about asking Grace to hold off the lacing at her ribs and hips, but did not, as she knew very well that Grace knew her job well, and was fully aware of the discomfort she was feeling and would only lace the corset in sufficient for her to fit into the selected outfit of the day.

The upwards and downwards pressure at her ribs and hips increased and then levelled as Grace finished the tightening at these points and began to concentrate on the waist. The gap at the waist was slowly closed down to 2" and the crushing pressure was becoming too much, too fast for Beatrice and she was starting to pant quite quickly, when she raised her arm to call a halt, Grace neatly tied of the laces and stood back for a few minutes while Beatrice got her breathing under control. Then at a sign from Beatrice, Grace and Anne stepped forward and helped Beatrice to her feet, Beatrice rose with no bend at all at the waist, as she was now solid from shoulder to knee.

Once on her feet, Beatrice stood quietly as the effort of standing, even aided as she was had started the panting again, while she stood trying to get some air into her compressed lungs, her hands moved constantly between her ribs and the top of her hips over the shiny blue material trying to massage her already aching ribs and hips, not noticing that she could not even feel the rubbing, through the thick material and nearly constant boning of the corset. When the panting subsided, she began to slowly move around the bedroom with small steps, stretching a little to try and settle the corset to her body. She tried to stretch upwards out of the corset to relieve the pressure on her ribs but the evening corset was so long in the waist and so high and tight at the chest that she could not seem to stretch out of it. She was beginning to remember why she had worn it for so short a time on the first and last occasion she had worn it.

As she walked back across the room she noticed Anne peeking at her watch and realised that time was passing and she only had just over an hour if she was to be ready for half past ten for the quarter of a mile walk across the park to the new bandstand.

Grace and Anne helped Beatrice back down to the cushions and Beatrice felt the increased pressure at her waist, hips and ribs as her body tried to bend against the inflexible boning of the corset. As she was settling down and calming breathing Anne coughed lightly.

"Maam, have you remembered that you did not actually get down to 18" when you tried on this corset, I think you said at the time that it was to long in the waist and it put to much pressure on your ribs".

Beatrice then remembered that this corset had been another one of Josephs attempts to improve her waist, they had tried on numerous occasions over the years to get down 17", but Beatrice’s waist had seemed to be quite intractable below 18" and any reduction seemed to require an exponential increase in pressure and many broken laces to get any advantage, indeed the substantial increase in pressure had always been to much for Beatrice and she had always broken down after even a short period at 17" and usually fainted clear away. Joseph had consulted many corsetieres for advice on this matter, but they had all agreed that for many women, there was a point at which no more reduction was possible. Joseph had not given easily though and Beatrice had tried a multitude of different design of normal corsets, training corsets, night corset and belts, all of which with some sense of relief for Beatrice had proved of no benefit. Joseph had not relented and he had asked Beatrice to concentrate on lengthening her waist to produce a stem like affect. The blue evening corset had been the latest product of Joseph’s ambition where he had been pushing Beatrice a little to fast. Her current corset gave her a stem of 1½", but the blue evening corset was near to 3" and was certain to give her a lot of problems if and (and as time was passing it now seemed inevitable) when she was laced to 18". She had a growing feeling that this inevability was just a ruse by Joseph to inveigle her into wearing the blue corset laced to 18".

Once her breathing had calmed she signalled, Grace to continue lacing, Grace undid the bow and with noticeably more effort than the earlier lacing, started to pull, she did not pull through any slack from above and below the stemmed area as she was trying to keep the pressure off Beatrice’s hips & ribs, the gap at the waist started to close and as Grace increased the pull, the tightness of laces increased to such a point that under her straining she started to lift Beatrice off the floor and even with the near solid boning at the waist gaps were appearing above and below the waist at the ribs and hips. Anne stepped in and used a buttonhook to pull the slack through above and below the waist while Grace pulled steadily. Beatrice gave a low groan as the corset tried to force her ribs and hips further apart.

Once the upper and lower gaps had closed further than the one at the waist, Grace halted the lacing keeping the strain on the laces, whilst Anne knelt down beside Beatrice with a lot of rustling of petticoats and creaking of stays. Anne bent over Beatrice’s waist, and with strong arms built up from years of lacing her mistress pushed in with all her strength on either side of Beatrice’s waist, Grace then increased her pull and the gap again began to close, but even with Anne’s help Grace’s steady pulling could not fully close it and she eventually had to resort to jerking and with each jerk Beatrice yelped a little as her now implausibly fragile waist was jolted up and then down again. At last the gap closed and all three women let out a sigh of relief as they relaxed, Beatrice’s relaxation was a lot less than the other two as she was now held in the vicelike grip of the corset from breast to thigh and had started panting heavily again, but at least uneven pressure on her waist from the lifting and jerking had stopped.

Grace quickly tied off the laces and Anne struggled back to her feet and they both helped Beatrice back to her feet, where they knew she would find breathing easier, the tight packed bones of the evening corset creaked heavily as she was aided from the horizontal to the vertical. Beatrice started to walk even before her breathing had calmed, she walked quite quickly as if trying to get away from the unremitting tightness of the corset and again she resumed the involuntary rubbing up down with her hands on the sides of the corset, even though it was obvious to Anne and Grace that it was doing not a jot of good, as the corset was now even more rigid and unforgiving than the time before. Her only words during this time were and understated

"My word, this corset is so tight"