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

Initially, the date was awkward. Aaron was not use to talking to girls about anything other that what kind of clothes they wanted him to make for them. Eventually he relaxed and found out she played a video game he liked and they were able to talk about that until the movie started. After the movie they went to an ice cream store and ate a bowl or a cone. He told a joke. She laughed. He was smitten.

After he returned home, Ashley was not a mannequin. She sometimes spent the whole weekend as a mannequin. Tonight, she was human and as soon as he got to his room, she was in the doorway. She said, “How was your date?”

“That was probably the longest time I spent talking with a girl my age about anything other than dresses ever. Even when I talk to you, it’s mostly about dresses.”

“It is?” She said. “I suppose it is. I’m sorry.

“It’s okay. Dresses got me the date in the first place. Not to mention a decent savings account.”

“Yeah, but you shouldn’t be all about just one thing.”

“I’m not. I do other things. It’s just most girls are only interested in my dresses.”

“You should do something about that.”

“I should.”

“Now that you’ve dodged the question. How did it actually go? For all I know you bored the poor girl with talk of your D&D game.”

“That never came up,” he said. “Even I know how boring it is to hear someone talking about a good time they had while gaming.”

“And?”

“I’m not going to kiss and tell.”

“So, there was kissing?”

“We had a lovely time, Sis. Now get going, I need to get ready for bed.”

“Good night.”

* * *

A few weeks passed and Heather started coming home with Aaron after school once or twice a week or Aaron would go to her house. Aaron only invited her over if he did not have an appointment scheduled to make a dress that day. They were sitting in his room doing homework when the doorbell rang.

“Ash, can you get the door?”

She didn’t respond.

Aaron got up and found her on her mannequin base. He answered the door.

“Hey, Aaron, can you do an emergency repair? A seam on my dress unraveled,” The woman at the door lifted the hem of her dress and showed him the unraveled seam. She was a senior at the school and Aaron had made her four or five dresses in the last year.

“Juliet? Um, sure, come it.”

He led her up to his room.

“Um, Heather, Juliet, here, has a sewing emergency. It shouldn’t take me more than ten minutes.”

“Oh, hello,” Heather said.

Aaron did not notice the coldness of her greeting.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your study session. I guess I should have called ahead,” Juliet said.

“You’re going to have to take off the dress,” Aaron said. “That’s far too much for me to hand sew.”

“Oh, I didn’t bring anything to change into.”

“Ashley probably has something you can wear but we can’t really ask her at the moment.”

“You can just make me a mannequin while you sew. I wouldn’t mind.”

“Okay,” he said. He led her into his parent’s bedroom and had her stand on the base in there.

Juliet whispered to Aaron as he was setting the controls to the Mannequin Disk 2000, “You can just leave me here until Heather goes home.”

Aaron stepped back and without a word triggered the machine with his foot.

Heather stood by as Juliet was turned into a mannequin and her dress was removed. The mannequin was naked under the dress.

When they returned to his room, Heather said, “You didn’t even notice, did you?”

“That she was naked? I noticed. Are you upset about this? I just want to get her hem repaired and get her out of here.”

“I’m not upset with her flirting.”

“Flirting?”

“What do you call telling you to leave her there until I leave?”

“I thought she just enjoys being a mannequin a lot.”

“Or she wants you to notice her naked body when your girlfriend is gone.”

“Well, she should have said something a month ago before you asked me out.”

“Aw.” Heather gave him a hug and they kissed for a while. “Since she said you could leave her as a mannequin, I don’t see any reason we can’t spend the whole day together.”

They laughed.

A few hours later, they were still studying when his mother peaked in the room. “Aaron, why is there a naked mannequin in my room?”

“Juliet was flirting with me in front of Heather so the hem she asked me to fix is taking a bit longer than you might think it would take.”

“I don’t mind you using the machine in my room for your business. But I would like to get changed in my room without an audience.”

“Not a problem,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He got up and took the dress he had hemmed while they were studying into his mother’s bedroom. “All set, Juliet.” He said as he redressed her. Once the dress was on her, he toggled the machine.

“Was your mother in here?”

“Yes, she was. Your hem is fixed and you can get going now.”

“What do I owe you for the repair?”

“I’ll add it into the cost of your next commission.”

“What if I don’t order another dress?”

“Then you get a free hem. See you around school sometime.”

Heather was standing in the doorway to Aaron’s room as he escorted Juliet to the front door. She waved at Juliet as she passed by.

When he returned, he said, “Did you enjoy yourself?”

“I did.”

“Well, try not to bring the claws out too much. Worrying about her behavior implies you worry about my behavior.”

“I didn’t mean to imply…”

“I know you didn’t. But, I could easily interpret it that way. It seems my life will be spent in the company of women. If that’s an issue, we have a problem.”

“It isn’t an issue. She was just very blatant.”

“I wonder if she went to school commando. And if not, when did she remove them? In her car?”

“See, this kind of speculation ruins your argument.”

“No, I’m just teasing you,” he said. “I had a thought. What if I made some dresses with various mannequins of diverse size and shape. I could sell them online without needing the person buying the dress coming in if they lived too far away. I could have some of my past buyers do the modeling and have the buyers pick a mannequin for sizing. I’ve made dresses for tall and short women, big and small women, busty and less endowed women, hippy and less endowed women. I wonder if any of them, aside from Juliet, would be willing to be my fitting dummies.”

“I would.”

“You would?”

“Sure. You could have those who were willing come in and stand next one another so the buyer could pick a body type. Then allow them to adjust things for height.”

“This could work.”

* * *

It was a disaster. He received over thirty orders within a day. He could not work that fast. Luckily, he had said they were first come, first serve and to allow up to ten weeks for delivery.

A dozen of his former buyers were willing, for a cut, to model for dresses they would not be buying. The day they all arrived for the photo was a bit hectic. He had to have the website reprogrammed twice that first week. Luckily, two of his models were also programmers and he was able to get that accomplished easily. Four of them, including Heather, were skilled with a sewing machine.

With his dress making money, he purchased his own Mannequin Disk machine, a model 3000. He wasn’t sure what the upgrade did but the price was comparable to the price he had paid for Ashley’s Disk.

He also bought a pair of sewing machines, tables, and chairs and he started mail ordering fabrics, zippers, and threads to create a set of standard fabric options for his line of clothes. At first, buyers were able to select dresses from his website but he could not always find the same fabrics. This was why he limited the number of fabric options.

With only a three to four hour window to work after school, he would invite models and a seamstress to the house. They could get through five or six dresses before dinner. He paid them hourly wages, far better than retail or fast food. When people found out about his pay, his pool of models and seamstresses increased.

With his parent’s help, he formed a limited liability corporation with him and his parents are the owners. They were listed as silent partners on the paperwork. He actually hired a lawyer and accountant to deal with all the stuff regarding paying the women working for him.

Over time, he was able to turn the dresses into dress patterns and this meant he could go back to doing custom dresses, for far more money now that he had a cheaper option.

Aaron did not intern at the boutique that summer but the boutique’s mannequin inventory did once again increase by one the entire summer. He was sad to lose Ashley as one of his models. His online sales were too high for him to spend any time at the boutique. His only real obstacle was age. He could not have his workforce work full time as they were mostly underage. Over the summer, he wanted to hire model and seamstresses who could work longer hours but that plan was nixed by his parents. He would need an actual work space to hire full time employees.

His online sales made his Aaron’s Mannequins social media sites more popular and vice versa. By the end of his junior year, he had six full time employees in a small office space downtown, all of whom were former buyers of his dresses and all of whom were his core models on the website. The office space opened in March of his junior year. The second day he realized he was missing an employee.

He arrived after school that day and the front door was unlocked. Heidi was working in the sewing room. It felt odd to him that someone would be working while he was at school. When she saw him, she said, “Aaron, you just missed a woman who wanted a custom dress.”

“What? A customer was here?”

“Yes, she had been knocking for a moment before I noticed. When I asked why she was early for an appointment, she said she didn’t have an appointment.”

“I guess we need a ‘by appointment only’ sign on the door.”

“What you probably need is an office telephone number: an actual land line.”

“Wow, a phone number that isn’t a cell phone number. Like a real business.”

“This feels like a real business to me.”

“Yes, I’ll call the phone company and get a phone put in and I guess hire a receptionist. Where’s Teresa?”

“Model room. I saw her going over the list of orders that listed her as the model and fetching fabric for them.”

Aaron went into the model room, a fancy name for the room where the Mannequin Base are located and where Aaron did most of his work. Teresa was already on the base and posed for dress making. “Good afternoon, Teresa,” he said.

She did not answer. On a table nearby were three sets of fabric, pin cushions, and work orders. Aaron checked them over for accuracy before starting work on the first pattern.

* * *

Nearly a year later, Ashley was standing in Priscilla's Boutique. Since graduating from high school, she had been spending several months at a time as part of the Boutique’s display inventory. One of the sales clerks of the boutique picked her up and brought her into the back room. Ashley was confused as she had not expected to leave the window display for another two weeks. Priscilla was waiting in the back for the clerk and started removing her dress as soon as she arrived. Neither of them said anything and Ashley assumed there was a reason they needed the dress.

They both left once she was naked. Priscilla returned with a trunk of some kind. She removed the mannequin’s arms and placed them into the velvet lined interior of the trunk. Its head, upper torso, lower torso, and legs were also placed into the trunk and the lid closed and latched.

Ashley was more than confused by this. She had never been packed in a box before. She was turned on by the idea. She felt the box was moved and set down. Time passed but Ashley could not tell how much time passed. The box was moved several more times before the box was opened. She was in a room she did not recognize from looking up out of the box. A woman she did not know reassembled her. Shoes were strapped to her feet and she was dressed in a dress she’d never seen before. The woman left her in the room, which she now saw had a work table and nothing else of note.

She heard a familiar beep and she realized she was standing on a Mannequin Disk. Just as she was able to move again, Aaron entered the room. “Surprise!”

“Aaron,” she said and gave him a hug. “Where am I?”

“My office.”

“You need to decorate the walls.”

“Oh, they have décor. I had them take the pictures down so you wouldn’t know where you were.”

“Why am I here?”

“Follow me.”

He led her into a workroom where nearly thirty people were mingling, drinking, and chatting.

“Hey, everyone, Ashley’s here.” Aaron announced.

“Hi, Ashley,” her mother said giving her a big hug. She was also greeted by her father, several high school friends, and Priscilla.

“I hope you enjoyed your journey.”

“Where did the box come from?”

“Aaron bought it for you.”

“It’s a late birthday present,” he said. He then addressed the group. “Today is the one year anniversary of moving my business out of my parent’s house and into this space. This business would be nothing without the people assembled here.” He raised a glass of sparkling apple cider. “To many years to come.”

The group joined in his toast and the clinking of glasses could be heard for a moment or two.

There was a cake and other refreshments. His mother eventually said to Aaron, “Remember when I showed you how to replace a seam.”

“I do.”

“You never made me a dress.”

“Robin?” he called out.

“Who’s Robin?” Mom said.

“My receptionist.”

Robin walked over and said, “You called?”

“Please schedule a custom appoint with my mother. She knows the owner so if you have to bump someone to fit her schedule, it should be fine.”

“I’ll get right on it when I’m back on the clock.”

“See how easy that is, Mom?”