Like Mother, Like Daughter (Part 1 of 3) (Patreon)

Ashley lay face-down on her bed chewing absentmindedly on the end of her pen. She tried to write something in her diary each day after school. She had been gifted a journal on her tenth birthday and in the two and a half years since then she had made a ritual about of writing in it after school. Just as she put pen to page, having figured out what to say, she was interrupted.

“Ashley!” her brother’s voice called out. Aaron’s head appeared at her door. “Have you seen Mom?”

“She’s kinning.”

“She is? Damn. I wanted ask her if I could go to Jeremy’s.” He was a year younger than Ashley: a year and five days to be precise. Ashley always enjoyed saying she was two years older than him during those five days.

Without looking up from her diary, Ashley said, “You can still ask her. She just won’t answer.”

“Right.” Aaron dashed off in the manner eleven years old boys run with purpose.

“I was kidding,” she said, getting up and chasing after him.

She arrived in her parent’s bedroom as Aaron was saying, “… going to Jeremy’s. I’ll be back by six for dinner. See you later.” He turned and walked out of the room.

Ashley watched him leave without saying anything before turning around and looking at Mom. Her mother was standing on a silver disc about two and half feet in diameter and maybe four inches tall. The disc was in an alcove created by the placement of the walk-in closet. A small LED facing her on the edge of the disc blinked. There was a small screen displaying a time duration that was decreasing: 48:04, 48:03, 48:02…

Her mother stood on the disc, unmoving. Her skin was unnaturally pale. She stood with her legs about shoulder width apart and her arms were just down by her side. Her face was expressionless and she seemed to be staring at the opposite corner of the room. Her eyes did not register that anyone was in the room with her because she was a mannequin.

For as long as Ashley could remember, her mother would spend time each day transformed into a mannequin. Whenever she asked her why, Mom would say it was very relaxing. A frown crossed Ashley’s face before she left the room. She returned to her diary and wrote:

Found Mom on her disc again. Didn’t want to go into her room but Aaron was being Aaron. I don’t understand why she turns into a mannequin but doesn’t act like a mannequin. She was just a frumpy piece of plastic when she could look cool.

Less than an hour later, Mom poked her head into Ashley’s room while Ashley was on her computer playing a game. “Did Aaron go out?”

“I believe so. I heard the front door close a little while ago,” Ashley said without looking up.

“I have to talk to him about that,” Mom said. “Any preferences for dinner? I have chicken thawed.”

“Chicken? How about a marinade?”

“Do you want to help?”

“I’ll be down in a minute. I need to finish this run,” she said, indicating the computer.

“Don’t forget to wash your hands.”

“Okay.”

When Aaron arrived home for dinner, his father met him at the door. “How many times have we told you not to ask your mother for permission when she obviously can’t answer?”

“I’ve lost count.”

His father rolled his eyes.

“I just went to Jeremy’s house. It’s three houses from here. I had already finished my homework. And I told Mom I’d be home by six. It’s still five of six now. I’m not a little boy.”

“For most purposes, you are.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“No. Go get washed up for dinner.”

* * *

A year later, Aaron poked his head into Ashley’s room to ask if she had seen Mom but Ashley was not there. He looked in the bathroom and his own room. She had come home with him on the bus. Where could she be?

On her bed was her diary. It was laying flat open to a page. Curiosity overcame him and he stepped in to get a closer look. The left half of the last page was taken up by a drawing of a woman wearing a flowy dress. The woman was apparently walking, her arms straight but loose, one swung forward, the other swung behind her. It was a pretty good drawing. The face had no details, kind of like a fashion sketch. He read the last paragraph:

Mannequins should look interesting! Mom’s frumpy poses are driving me crazy. Why can’t she stand on her disk like this?!! (An arrow runs from the word ‘this’ to the drawing next to the paragraph.) She just stands there with arms by her side. EVERY TIME! I’ll show her.

“I’ll show her?” he said. He ran from her room. When he reached his parent’s bedroom door he stopped short. A mannequin posed exactly like the drawing in Ashley’s diary was standing, or perhaps walking, on his mother’s mannequin disk. It was not wearing a dress like in the drawing. It was Ashley. He approached the mannequin. “You finally did it,” he said. “Mom is going to ground you.” He looked at the timer and saw that she had another eighteen minutes to go. He wondered if she had ever done this before. Mom had texted them earlier about being home late. He took his phone out and snapped a couple pics of the mannequin.

For laughs, he said, “I’m going to Jeremy’s house. Tell Mom I’ll be back by six if she gets back sooner.”

Later that night, Ashley knocked on Aaron’s bedroom door. “Can I come in?”

“Sure, Ash.”

“About this afternoon.”

“Something happen this afternoon?”

Ashley smiled. “Can I see the pics?”

Aaron pulled out his phone and tapped the screen a few times. Ashley’s phone beeped a few seconds later. She opened her phone and saw the images of her as a mannequin for the first time. “How was it? Mom always says it relaxes her.”

“It was relaxing. I don’t know. It felt hallow.”

Aaron laughed.

It took Ashley a moment understand why. She giggled. “I didn’t mean literally hallow. I meant… I thought it would be more exciting. It lacked something.”

“Movement?”

“No. Something external. I don’t know. Mannequins are supposed to showcase clothing. Not hide in a bedroom.”

Over the next few weeks, Aaron would find Ashley using their mother’s mannequin disk whenever their mother was going to be home late. He got in the habit of taking her picture when he found her there. She always thanked him after he forwarded the pic to her.

One afternoon, Ashley was standing on the disk wearing her gym clothes. She saw him snap a pic. “There are forty minutes left on your transformation,” he said. She could tell he had had a sudden idea by the expression on his face. He ran off.

He went into her room and pulled a few things from her closet. He returned his parent’s bedroom and locked the door behind him. He said, “Don’t freak out. I think this will help.”

He pulled her gym shorts down. He picked her up and removed them.

She freaked out. “What is he doing?” She thought. She felt something being pulled up her legs. She was not sure what it was until he was pulling a side zipper up. It must have been one of her skirts.

He raised her arms, they swiveled at the shoulder. He wondered if he could remove them. He pulled her shirt off over her head. The mannequin was not wearing a bra. He was surprised by the fact that her breasts had no nipples.

She freaked out again. “Now my little brother is oogling my boobs.” As she thought it, she realized he was not actually oogling anything. He matter-of-factly pulled a blouse over her head. He returned her arms to how they had been posed when he first entered.

He spent a moment shifting the garments with gentle adjustments to make them look most flattering. He stepped back to admire his work and snapped a few pics. He picked up the clothes she had been wearing and left.

Ashley said nothing to him about this and he said nothing to her. The next time Mom was working late, Aaron entered her room and found she was not there. Lying on her bed was her closed diary and a dress. Aaron picked up the dress and went to his parent’s bedroom.

The mannequin on the disk was nude. Its pose was set such that the dress could easily be put on it. He did not take a before picture. He bunched up the dress and put it over her head. He pulled her arms into the sleeves. He pulled the dress down and made a few adjustments to it. He left the room and returned with a brush from Ashley’s room. He fixed her hair after it had gotten a bit messy when the dress had dragged over it.

After she looked right and he had put a necklace on the mannequin, he snapped a couple pics. This became a ritual the two of them performed whenever their mother would not be home in the afternoon. Within a month of doing this at most twice a week, Aaron would add makeup to Ashley’s frozen face. Sometimes, when they had enough time, Ashley would leave out more than one outfit and Aaron would change her clothes twice.

For Ashley’s fourteenth birthday, she went out on that Friday night with some friends. When she got home, Aaron said he got her a present. He said, “It’s in your room. Mom and Dad helped me pay for it.”

Ashley went upstairs and found, in a corner of her room, a mannequin disk of her own. Mom walked in and said. “Are you going to try it out?”

“You knew?”

“We did.”

Ashley hugged her mother. “He also bought you this.”

It was a pale blue dress, long and straight. Ashley unbuttoned her top. “He can put it on me.”

It did not fit. Aaron had removed her arms and head to get the dress on her. It was too tight for her hips and too loose around her waist. He took it off her and dressed her in something else. He took the dress to his room.

“What’s the matter?” Mom asked him.

“The dress didn’t fit.”

“How?”

“It was tight here and loose here. If I could move some of this cloth to here it would be perfect.”

“So, why don’t you do that? Come with me. Bring the dress.”

His mother showed him how to remove the side seam in the sections that were a problem. And then she showed him how to add a panel on both side to widen the dress at the hips.

She did most of the pinning to set it up. She had him do the sewing to put it back together. When he was done, he went into Ashley’s room. She was still a mannequin. The timer said it would last until morning. He changed her clothes and the dress now fit. After taking pics, he said good night to her.

Not having to hide what they were doing from Mom, everyday after school they would finish their homework. Instead of changing her clothes in the afternoon before Mom got home, after dinner she would pick out what she wanted to wear to school in the morning. She would spend the night as a mannequin. Before going to bed, he would change her into the outfit she had laid out. In the morning she could go downstairs immediately to eat breakfast and leave for school. She even saved time when he did her makeup for her.

Aaron started a blog called Aaron’s Mannequin. He would crop the pictures so they did not include Ashley’s face. The blog became popular and he started cross-posting his pics to multiple social media outlets.

Aaron had the blog because he had a secret project. One evening he came into her room and dressed her in clothes she had not left out. In the morning, she found herself wearing an original dress that Aaron had designed and sewn. She loved it. It was a knee-length dress with square bodice and puffy sleeves. It also fit her like a glove. All her friends wanted to know where she got it. She did not tell them. She wore the dress to her eighth grade graduation ceremony.

In the fall, every couple weeks, she would show up to school with a one-of-a-kind amazing outfit: dresses, pants suits, separates. But, she would not reveal her source. Asked if she was making them herself, Ashley could only respond, “I wish I were that talented.”

Aaron was at the mall with Ashley when an older girl confronted them. “This is your brother Aaron, right?”

“That’s my name.”

“What do you want, Marissa?”

“You know her?” Aaron said.

“She’s a sophomore at the high school.”

“He’s Aaron from Aaron’s Mannequin.”

“I don’t know what that is,” he said.

“Liar. I saw your sister here wearing the dress posted on Aaron’s Mannequin a couple days ago. You must have made that dress.” She shoved the posted image displayed on her phone in their faces.

“I bought it online,” Ashley said. “I buy dresses online all the time.”

“Look, Aaron can design a dress for me or I’ll have my little sister spread rumors at the middle school that Aaron designs dresses.”

“Fine,” Ashley said. “Come to my house Friday night. I’ll tell Mom you’re my friend.”