The coffee had long since gone cold by the time Eleanor lifted it to her lips and took the first sip. She grimaced as she returned the oversized cup to the oversized saucer, only partly from the unpalatable taste of the contents. The largest part of her discomfort came instead from the fact that she had reached the final page of the job listings in the last of the papers spread across the table before her for what was probably the fifth time that morning and the result was still that she had found nothing that was even remotely worth pursuing.

In contrast to the listings, she did not have to go through her account statements more than once to know that there was no hope that she had made a mistake or missed out some vital piece of information. She simply had more going out than she had coming in and that was a situation that she had to change as soon as she was able.

But as always it was far easier to brood on a problem than it was to actually do something practical about it, and now that she had exhausted the papers the only thing that Eleanor could think of to do was sit back and feel sorry for herself until another course of action presented itself.

"Let me buy you another," Eleanor glanced up from the papers at the sound of Kat's voice. "By the look on your face that one must be stone cold by now."

"My conscience says no," she gave her friend a mock frown, "but the caffeine addict in me is much stronger and she says what the hell!"

While Kat left their table to order, Eleanor tried to drown the guilt that she felt at accepting the other woman's charity for even something as small as a cup of coffee. She knew that a refusal would have been met with a characteristic tirade against her own ridiculous pride, but the feeling was there all the same.

Eleanor often wondered if she could have survived in New York for as long as she had without the priceless help and advice of her native friend. To look at the two were as different as could be and perhaps that was one of the things that had caused them to become such firm friends. It was doubtlessly true that the one tended to complement the other in many ways and seldom had a day gone by when they did not see each other in the flesh or talk on the phone for a lengthy period of time.

Kat stood a little over four feet in height and exemplified what many people thought of when they pictured the women of the Bronx. She was dark in eyes, hair and complexion as well as being possessed of an accent that to some sounded like nails on a chalkboard to some and the song of a siren to others. For her part she lived up to the reputation of the tough neighbourhood from which she originated, unwilling and unable to back down from a fight as much as she was ferociously loyal to her friends.

She was something of a contrast to Eleanor, who stood almost six feet in her flats and had crossed the Atlantic to get where she was at that moment in time. But like her friend, she did stand as a fine example of what people pictured when they thought of her roots. If her Irish heritage was not given away by her dark red hair and pale skin, then the strong accent that still refused to be watered down by her time in the US was sure to do the trick.

As was usual with women of their generation, both Eleanor and Kat spent a great deal of their time maligning their own attributes while praising those of the other. The former envied the latter her slight figure and diminutive stature, while in reverse the latter saw herself as paramount to a dwarf and made much of the likeness she saw between the former and the women painted in classical style by the pre-Raphaelites. In short, neither would acknowledge their own qualities nor refuse to proclaim that the other had them in spades.

"Let me have a look," Kat seized the pile of papers as soon as her friend had her hands around the fresh cup of coffee. "Might be that you're missing something a native can pick up on."

"Don't let me stop you," Eleanor took a deep sip from the cup. "I would have thought that after five years living in this city I could have picked up on things like that myself. Makes me wonder if I'm fooling anyone in thinking of this place as home."

"No offence," the other woman did not pause to look up from the column she was scrutinising, "but living here as a student is not the same as growing up in these parts."

"So it seems."

"Here you go," Kat slid the paper under Eleanor's gaze, "what about that?"

"You're kidding!"

"Why would I be?"

"That's an ad for a live in domestic with experience down as a necessity," Eleanor shook her head. "How on earth am I even qualified for that?"

"You worked in that hotel while we were on summer break a year back, didn't you?"

"And?"

"Elle," Kat's expression was one of friendly exasperation, "you say you want to feel like a native New Yorker and then come out with some kind of whiter than white crap like that? Drink your coffee and hope that it wakes you up a little. You need to be a lot more creative with the facts, play up the positives and just don't mention the negatives!"

"You mean lie?"

"Who said lie?" Kat shrugged her shoulders. "You made up rooms in that hotel and they call the people who do that 'housekeepers', don't they? And what's a domestic apart from someone who cleans up and makes the bed?"

"I suppose I could try it," Eleanor sounded less than convinced.

"What have you got to lose?"

She spent a moment in silence as she truly considered her friend's point. What in reality did she really have to lose if she applied for a job that she was hardly qualified for? Surely the chances were that the prospective employer would simply look over her CV and toss it in the bin if she was that unqualified. Even if she got the job and it turned out to be a disaster, she was not committing a crime of any kind and in the end she would be right back where she started.

"Okay," she made the symbolic gesture of ringing the ad with a red marker which she retrieved from beneath the mass of papers, "you're right: what have I got to lose?"

"I bet you get it," Kat laughed. "I can see you in a maid's outfit already."

"I'm sure it's not that kind of position," Eleanor tried to hide the worry that the suggestion had stirred in her. "Actually, I'm more worried about the idea of living in the place where I'm working. It just seems odd in this day and age."

"Could be," Kat nodded. "But on the flip side you'd be saving money on rent as well as earning a wage. Not too shabby to be ticking off two items on the list of worries at the same time."

Eleanor nodded and took a deep breath to fortify her nerves as she dialled the number at the bottom of the ad. She just hoped that her friend was right and that she was one step towards a solution to her problems rather than starting on the road towards an unmitigated disaster.

Despite the time she had spent in New York and the breadth of experience that she liked to think she had amassed during it, Eleanor had never found herself in the position of needing to enter one of the towering blocks of apartments that housed the wealthier end of city society. But she had gleaned little else from the vague conversation with a person whom she assumed was her perspective employer apart from this address and so she found herself faced with the unavoidable necessity of swallowing her anxiety and walking as boldly as she was able up to the front doors.

The entrance was a subdued affair of metal and glass doors that might at one time have been considered grand before time and wear had faded it to the state in which she found it. Eleanor found herself with the impression that nothing had been done to stave off the visible aging of the exterior as an odd kind of protest. While the city around it strode boldly into the new millennium and beyond, perhaps the spirit of such small bastions of past traditions retained the evidence of their antiquation with a defiant pride.

Even the doorman, who nodded a polite greeting as he held the portal open for her and made a sound that might have been a word or a mere mumble, wore the same motif in the washed out colours of his uniform. Had there been a covering of cobwebs and a spider hanging by a silk thread from the peak of his cap, Eleanor would not have thought it a strange sight.

She crossed the cracked marble floor and paused before stepping into one of the archaic elevators that lined the wall to her left. They too were in keeping with the general state of decaying finery in the building and Eleanor could not recall having seen an example of one that looked older. She was in half a mind to locate the stairs regardless of the fact that her destination was the penthouse at the very top of the building. But a prompt chime and sliding of doors following the press of the call button did a little to calm her nerves and she stepped into the waiting car despite her earlier misgivings.

The journey to the peak of the tower was surprisingly smooth as the elevator made its way upwards with little sign of the outward negligence showing in its inner workings. Soon the doors were sliding open once again, but this time Eleanor was presented with a quite different sight to the lobby below.

Though the basic materials were the same marble and wood panelling as communal entrance to the building, this small landing was a very different prospect indeed. Where the lobby had been worn and threadbare, this was well-kept and showed the passage of years as a gentle flow rather than an obliterating torrent. Light streamed into the space from an elegant skylight in the ceiling above and not only served to illuminate the landing, but also provided sustenance to a riot of plants that populated the corners and hung from the walls.

Eleanor stepped out of the elevator and made her way across the landing and towards the single door that stood at the opposite end of the enclosed space. It was an unremarkable affair of solid wood that bore no grandiose decoration apart from a handle, heavy knocker and the obvious aperture of a spyhole by which the person answering the door could cast an eye over whoever was on the other side before deciding to grant them entry or else leave them to rot on the doorstep.

Now that she was standing before the door, there was really nothing for her to do except knock or turn around and leave. On the balance of things and considering the realities of her situation that had brought her this far, Eleanor decided that the latter would probably have been the more sensible thing to do, but as she was not keen on more fruitless searching through newspapers while being harangued by Kat for her lack of courage, she decided that she would do the former instead.

Eleanor flinched as the sound of the knocker reverberated around the landing in a manner that reminded her of church bells heard from a few feet away. The echo seemed to last forever and she was so busy covering her ears against the sound that she entirely failed to notice the fact that the door had opened right in front of her. It was only when she felt the unmistakable sensation of being watched that Eleanor actually turned her gaze back towards the doorway and saw for the first time that there was a figure standing in the open portal, studying her intently.

The last remnants of the knocking were fading away, but all the same the sound did not seem to even merit the notice of the woman who had opened the door. She was tall, at least a half foot greater in height than Eleanor herself, who was by no means short. She was also narrow in build, but not slender or slight at the same time. Had she been a man, one might have described her as lean in body due to the fact that she seemed not at all lacking in presence for all that she was lacking in visible bulk.

Another thing that Eleanor noticed almost immediately was the fact that the woman was immaculate in every sense of the word. Her pale, almost white skin was so smooth and clear of blemishes that it could have been compared to alabaster and was elegantly set off against her subtle use of makeup. What might have been masses of thick black hair was gathered into an old fashioned style on the back of her head and her uniform black clothing bore not a single spot or crease.

"Can I ask why you're making such a noise?"

Eleanor was so taken aback by the striking appearance of the woman in the doorway that the odd nature of her question simply failed to sink in to any noticeable degree.

"I'm sorry," lost for words, she fell back on the oldest response in the shared lexicon of the English language and simply apologised without any particular understanding of the reason why. "I really had no idea that the noise would echo so much."

"Well," the woman spoke in a slightly odd manner, as if unused to holding a conversation with another human being at such short notice, "please refrain from making that awful noise again."

As she made to close the door without another word, Eleanor suddenly remembered the reason that she was standing in front of the door in the first place. Without thinking, she jammed her foot against the frame and winced as the considerable weight of the door slammed into it.

"Now I seem to have one of your extremities partially inside my abode," the woman looked down at Eleanor's foot as though it had materialised in its current position out of thin air. "I would be very grateful if you would see fit to remove it and then yourself from the general vicinity."

"I'm here about the job," Eleanor produced the wanted ad, which the woman stared at in the same puzzled manner as she had the foot jammed in the door. "I wanted to apply for the position of domestic that you advertised for?"

The woman's expression underwent such a sudden change that Eleanor was left wondering just what she could have said to strike a chord with such a seemingly strange character. Could it have been the way in which she had chosen to word her aim in such an overly formal manner? Everything else about this baffling person seemed so stiff and reserved that it would make sense she favoured speaking in such a painfully unnatural way.

"Well of course," there was little more warmth in the woman's voice, but at least she was now focussed on the same subject as Eleanor. "In that case you should probably come inside. Please consider yourself granted permission to enter my abode."

With that she stepped back to allow Eleanor to enter the hallway beyond the door.

Here goes nothing, Eleanor thought as she stepped over the threshold.

The first sip of the tea which the woman had poured into the delicate teacup in Eleanor's hand had proven to be so bitter that she confined herself to nursing it politely as they sat in what she was sure would have been better described as drawing room than anything resembling a modern term. The interior of the penthouse had both continued the theme of immaculate if eccentric décor and at the same time amazed her with the sheer size amount of space it encompassed.

In the time it had taken to walk from the front door to the neat little room in which they sat, she had seen so many rooms that were filled with so many intriguing things that there was no way they could all have been recalled. It was apparent even after so short a period inside the apartment that it must have occupied most if not all of the upmost floor in the tower entirely to itself.

The implications of such a vast space in so expensive a neighbourhood were not lost on Eleanor and she wondered who this strange woman could be to have such lavish accommodation. Even the smallest of apartments in a building of this kind must have been prohibitively expensive and so the value of the one in which she was taking tea was hard to even begin to guess.

"I feel that I must explain some small matters to you," the woman seemed to be fond of the bitter tea and drank a healthy and yet dainty mouthful before she continued. "I am not accustomed to attending to matters such as answering the door and having been required to do so since the unfortunate departure of the last domestic I have come to the conclusion that I do not like to do so either."

Eleanor nodded at the comment, thinking that it explained the woman's strange behaviour to some extent. If she was as extremely old fashioned as she seemed to be, then perhaps the idea of performing tasks that a normal person would have seen as routine could make her so awkward and odd.

"As your name is Eleanor and I am fond of the name, I will therefore call you 'Eleanor' when we converse." She placed a hand upon her chest as she spoke. "I would require that you address me as 'Madame' rather than anything more formal, but I cannot abide to be referred to in an overly familiar manner by a person whom I employ as a domestic."

"I hope you'll pardon my saying so, Madame," the woman smiled slightly at the sound of the word as Eleanor's accent rendered it and she realised that aside from the rather stiff way in which she held herself, the older woman was actually deceptively beautiful. "But you seem to be talking as though I'd already been successful in getting the job."

"Now then," Madame shook her head slightly, "what kind of silly talk is that? Of course you will take the job. You seem to be the perfect choice for the position as far as I am concerned and as I am the person who will be employing you my opinion would be the only one that counts. The fact that you are the only candidate that I have seen would also stand as a mark in your favour as well as the simple reality that if I have to cope on my own for another day then I simply do not know what will become of me. I mean, look at the state of this place."

Eleanor followed Madame's gesture as she surveyed what looked to her to be the most pristine example of a drawing room she had ever seen. For the sake of not causing a fuss, she nodded her head in agreement and shook it slightly at the points when it seemed appropriate.

"I have to confess," Eleanor thought it was time to drop her own contributions into the conversation and see what ripples that cast, "that I'm not the most experienced of people when it comes to this kind of position."

"That is not as much of a barrier as you might think," oddly Eleanor had suspected that may have been the case. "I am sure that a clever young thing like you will manage to pick up the gist of things in no time. And before you ask, I understand completely the reasons that are so often behind a girl of your age looking to find employment of this kind."

"You do?"

"Of course," Madame gave a conspiratorial wink. "Not all of the pretty young things can catch the eye of the eligible bachelors on the social scene or command a dowry to draw attention. Some of them need to make an effort to amass a fortune of their own so that they may make their way in the world. I am sure that with the salary I am willing to provide you will be able to do just that."

Eleanor felt as though she was taking tea with an actress who was so absorbed in her role as a matriarch from a Jane Austin novel that she had forgotten where she ended and the character began. She had to consider the possibility that the woman was quite literally mad, but then did the higher echelons of New York society not have a well-known reputation for harbouring a long tradition of wealthy oddities? If there was nothing more to this than eccentricity and the woman was willing to let her learn as she went on, was there really an issue to be wrestled with at all?

"Could I ask what the salary would be?"

Madame nodded and proceeded to write a figure on a small pad of paper she produced from a side table.

She folded the page when she was done and slid it across the tablecloth towards Eleanor.

When she unfolded the paper and read the figure in the neat but flowing script, Eleanor was convinced more than ever that the other woman was more than a little insane.

"That would be per annum," Madame seemed to respond to her expression of surprise, "of course."

Eleanor was suddenly placed in a position that she had never thought possible before she entered the penthouse. On the paper was a sum of money that could see her well on the way to clearing her debts and beyond that even start to plan for a home of her own. If this was legitimate and there was no issue as far as her being able to ease into the job, she did not see how she could afford to turn the offer down.

"That's a very generous salary," she tried to keep her voice level, "for a domestic."

"Ah," Madame raised a single finger.

There had to be an 'Ah', Eleanor thought, I knew it was too good to be true.

"There are other elements to the position that I was not prepared to make mention of in an advertisement in a newspaper. These are elements that I would only feel comfortable explaining to a suitable applicant as they are somewhat more sensitive than the normal duties of a common domestic."

Eleanor nodded and tried to prepare herself for whatever lay ahead.

"Please," Madame rose from her seat and gestured for Eleanor to do likewise. "Follow me."

They stood in a room that defied Eleanor's vision of the way in which the world worked. As far as she was concerned, at that very moment she was Alice and she was very much through the looking glass. If there was one consolation, the contents of the room went some way towards explaining the bizarre character of the woman in who's home she found herself. Based upon the myriad of items that she kept passing her eyes over in the vain hope that it would all resolve itself into something more familiar, it was no wonder she had chosen not to mention any of this in the newspaper ad.

"I am an exceedingly private person," Madame explained as she gazed absently at an intimidating array of dildos and vibrators that sat in neat rows upon a rack that was bolted to one of the walls. "You can understand that upon seeing something of this nature, the average person would be likely to form the wrong impression."

Eleanor found that all she could do was nod in response while wondering for the life of her what the right impression to form might have been.

"What goes on behind closed doors is for the benefit of myself and those whom I choose to invite into my abode."

For a moment the memory of the formal way in which she had been ushered over the threshold sprang to the fore in Eleanor's mind. She had the panicked thought that this was all some elaborate kind of code by which Madame was trying to inform her that she wanted to make use of the contents of this fetishistic horde upon her person right there and then.

"In your position as domestic," Madame went on, "you would be expected to maintain that veil of privacy and never speak outside these walls of what you have seen."

Eleanor almost let out a breath of relief at the fact she had not been asked, or even worse forced to take part. She nodded in agreement, her mind racing through the implications that this cast upon the idea of taking the job. She was amazed to find herself thinking that in reality there was little that this revelation actually changed in real terms. So Madame liked to get up to some kinky stuff behind closed doors with willing partners, so what? Was that not how the world in general managed to keep going from one day to the next? So long as people were not getting exploited or hurt when they did not want to, who was to say that there was anything wrong?

"I think I understand," Eleanor nodded. "I'm not very experienced with this kind of thing myself, but your secret's safe with me."

"There," Madame seemed pleased with her response, "I knew an intelligent girl like you would be able to understand all of this. I know it must seem awfully intimidating at first sight, but really it is nothing more than a way of enhancing the enjoyment that is to be had in life's more carnal pleasures. It has a long and fascinating history all of its own, something that most people are sadly ignorant of these days."

"I'm sure it's very interesting," Eleanor tried to sound sympathetic without sounding interested at the same time.

"Oh but it is," Madame, "once it has you in its grip, one has to wonder what else could possibly replace it."

"I wouldn't know anything about that kind of thing," Eleanor glanced at the open door behind her.

"I have to say that I find that hard to believe," Madame made no effort to close the distance between them as she cast an appraising eye over the younger woman. "I am not totally ignorant of the outside world and I know full well that young ladies are no longer expected to hide themselves away beneath petticoats and carry themselves with practised deportment. One thing that can become an irritant is a habit of constantly running one's self down for no reason other than a timidity that is both unbecoming and utterly nonsensical in the face of evidence to the contrary."

Eleanor felt herself flush, suddenly aware of the fact that she was being complimented in a roundabout way by the strange woman while at the same time receiving a dressing down for her own self-deprecating manner.

"If you are to be successful within my household," Madame still kept her distance, somehow managing to inspire the sensation of contact with the tone of her voice and the delivery of her words, "you will need to become comfortable around such things as the contents of this room. I will never ask or demand that you do a thing that you feel is not to your liking, but the hidden side of my lifestyle has a way of…creeping into one's mind and sparking possibilities that were always present, but hidden from view. You may find that trying to deny yourself a thing that you seem to develop an unexpected interest in is far more damaging in the greater scheme of it all than simply experimenting with an open mind and exploring what you do and do not find pleasurable."

Eleanor looked at her feet as her cheeks burned, Madame's words burrowing into her ears like seditious seeds carried on the wind. The woman was gracious enough to make no advances towards her, not to openly suggest that she should take any action that she did not desire, but at the same time she managed to subtly mock the restraint and reserve with which she behaved.

As she tried to make sense of the feelings that had been stirred inside her, Eleanor was surprised to find that one of the strongest was not shame, but instead a growing sensation of indignation. Was there in fact something in what the woman said? Here she was being shown a vision of a world in which people followed their most basic urges and cast off any sense of worry about what others might think of them.

And what was her reaction to such a liberating and dangerous idea?

All she had done was stare at her feet and turn a bright shade of red.

Why did she do that, what made her keep shying away from the idea of her own sexuality?

"It always amazes me," Madame shook her head, "when I see a person who hides themselves away for no reason apart from their own timidity. You have a sweet face, hair a colour that one would never be able to recreate outside of nature and a brain that seems to tick away very nicely inside your head. So tell me, why should people not want you? More to the point, why should you not believe that they would want you? What could there be inside of you apart from your own reservations that would stop you from embracing the pleasures that are there to be had, that are there for the taking?"

Madame's words were akin to a sound pitched too high for the largest part of Eleanor's mind to perceive, but there was a small element to which it was perfectly attuned. For the best part of her life that part of her mind had been kept in check by the efforts of her conservative upbringing in god-fearing surroundings, kept down by the fact that she was not a waif with sun-bronzed skin or narrow hips. But now the older woman's probing had stirred the repressed emotions, brought them to life and for the first time in years the voice inside Eleanor's head that wanted to shout and scream to be heard was awakened.

Why not?

It was a question that Eleanor had never asked herself before, always breezing past such things with the assumption that she was just not that type of girl. She was not the kind of girl who made a big thing of her curves or dressed to emphasize her cleavage. Showing off her cascading red hair would have been just that: showing off. When others climbed onto a podium or danced on a bar just because they were young and having a good time, she never joined them as people would be looking at her. She would rather die than make the first move and actually talk to the man whom she could have sworn just smiled at her, because she was probably mistaken anyway.

Why?

There had been so many times over the years that she had retreated when she now realised that she should have taken a chance, put one foot forward and just had a damn ounce of confidence in herself.

"It's like my rocking horse," Eleanor's words seemed to both puzzle and delight Madame as she broke the silence.

"How so, my dear?"

"It was back when I was a little girl," Eleanor looked up. "I had a wooden rocking horse, the old wooden kind. It was beautiful, painted wood and with a mane that was so long. I spent all my time thinking of how perfect and special that it was, I never even dared to climb onto its back once. I'd just sit there and stare at the thing, maybe plait the mane, I was so afraid that I'd do something to break it. And then before I knew it they were taking it away from me, telling me that I was too old for toys and that I had to grow up. I didn't get to ride the thing in all the time that I had it."

"It would be a shame if you treated your life in the same way as you treated that rocking horse," Madame shook her head as she spoke. "In fact I think it would be a tragedy."

"I think you're right," Eleanor was looking the other woman in the eyes as she spoke. "Maybe I should be more open to new experiences for once instead of running away scared all the time."

"Well in that case, I think I may be able to help you." Madame could not help laughing as a flash of her former reticence leapt into Eleanor's eyes at her words. "No my dear," the older woman shook her head, "I am not trying to make advances towards you for my own self. While I appreciate the natural beauty of the female form, I am more inclined towards individuals of the other gender myself. What I mean to say is that I am often the hostess for events of a strictly private nature that would be a perfect means of introduction for you to the world that the contents of this room exist to serve."

"I think that would be quite a scary experience," Eleanor was at once both intrigued and intimidated by the idea of being initiated into such a hidden realm of experience. "I'd be worried about what was expected of me."

"I admire your honesty," Madame wore an expression that spoke of understanding. "But we are not unsubtle in our ways and I have come across others in my time who wrestled with curiosity as well as a natural timidity at the prospect of seeing such things for the first time. Would you be more at ease with the proposition of being involved in a way which meant you could see all that went on and yet knew that you would not be required to speak to or even acknowledge another human being?"

Eleanor nodded, intrigued at the idea of being an observer to what went on behind the closed doors of Madame and her circle of friends.

The older woman nodded in turn and motioned for her to follow as she opened a door in one of the walls that could have escaped the notice of anyone unaware of its presence. Inside Eleanor was greeted by the sight of what seemed to be shed skins made of materials such as leather, rubber and plastic and ranging in colour from glistening black through all the tones that she could imagine all the way to the purest white. But of course these were not skins, but rather suits designed to cover the body of the wearer and display their form beneath the tight skin of the material.

Many of the suits were intended to cover the body completely, some with hoods that showed the face and some that left it as blank as a new sheet of paper. Some had sleeves that ended in gloves, others mittens and some even that terminated in what looked like blunt shapes such as spheres or even resembled the tentacles of an octopus or squid. Their surfaces were not uniformly smooth and more than a few boasted spikes, patterns or even a map of raised nodules that mimicked the hide or scales of an animal.

In addition there were boots and shoes that made Eleanor wince at their severity and height, hoods separate from a suit that were even more elaborate than those that were attached and a myriad of other items that she was baffled by and could only assume were in some way related to the purpose of the suits themselves.

Her attention was dragged away from contemplation of the contents of the exotic wardrobe into which she had been lead when Madame coughed discreetly and directed her gaze towards a particular outfit that stood out even against the other due to its complexity and strangeness.

Adorning a featureless mannequin, the first element of the costume was a bodysuit made of a shiny black rubber and adorned with exquisite detailing. It was immediately apparent that the headpiece of the suit was distinctly not human in shape, but rather made in the long and broad image of an equine with only the holes for the eyes being appropriate to the position of the wearer.

Where there might normally have been space for ten fingers, the arms of the suit ended in a pair of hooves that would swallow the hands of the wearer. In the same manner there was no accommodation for feet save for a slightly larger pair of hooves into which they would be slipped.

On a low rack close to the mannequin stood a row of what could only be tails intended for the costume, each with a distinct colour that matched a common shade of human hair.

Eleanor saw that the from the shape of the suit, it had been designed with a woman in mind and there was no way that a man could have forced his frame into the thing without causing some degree of damage to his anatomy in the effort.

Before the suit stood what at first appeared to be a frame of some kind of matt black material, its size and rough shape making her mistake it at first for an odd kind of sledge or toboggan. But she soon saw there was no seat for a rider and that the runners were curved so that the entire thing would rock backwards and forwards on the spot, never moving in any other direction under its own momentum.

Alone the shape of the thing and the sturdy leather straps that Eleanor now saw were attached to it, would have baffled her. But taken with the equine nature of the suit and the knowledge she had gained of what things were indulged in by Madame and her circle, there was little else she could have concluded that the ensemble was intended for.

Dressed in the suit and then strapped to the frame, the person wearing the costume would in effect become a human rocking horse.

"It's a marvellous coincidence, you must admit," Madame shook her head in a gesture of quiet amazement, "that I had commissioned this very item not a week ago."

She made her way to the rack of tails, he hand hovering over them until she found one that was a deep and fiery red. Plucking it from amongst the others, she turned and compared it to Eleanor's own tresses. Though she did not say as much, even Eleanor had to admit to herself that the match between the colours was close enough to be uncanny.

"Now there's nothing to be gained for you were there a rocking horse that you could ride upon," Madame shook her head. "What good would that do for a grown woman? No, the door to that particular stable has been opened and the horse has long since bolted, if you will forgive the obvious metaphor. But here is a chance to make a symbolic step forwards while reclaiming a little of what you were denied all those years ago. What woman truly wants to ride on a little wooden horse, especially when you and I both know that the fun is far more in the act of being ridden one's self?"

Eleanor felt her nails digging into the palms of her hands as she gazed at the suit and imagined herself spread out upon the rockers. Madame's words had already provoked her imagination into wild speculation as to just how the feel of the hooves on her extremities and the press of the rubber on her body would feel. She could almost feel the sensation of being under the gaze of strangers as she was forced to remain still and restrained before them. Eleanor almost dared to picture a hand reaching out towards her, touching her skin through the rubber so that her tail twitched in excitement.

"I hope to be able to show this off at the ball I will be hosting in one week's time," Madame handed the luxurious tail to Eleanor. "I think that it would be a terrible shame if there was no one to wear it, don't you?"

Eleanor nodded in agreement without saying a word.

The week that had stood between Eleanor and the ball was gone what seemed like a matter of mere hours rather than days. In that time she became familiar with the way in which Madame ran her household, although she failed to have the time to make the acquaintance of any other members of the staff. She was required to wear a uniform that while quite formal and conservative, she was sure would have driven anyone aroused by Tim Burton movies into a fit of unrestrained passion.

She learned that the theme of the ball was to be a magical and darkly twisted take on the trappings and contents of a traditional toyshop. Apparently the underlying aim of the event, as far as Madame and her peers were concerned, was to attempt to outdo one another with the most extravagant and delightful interpretation of the theme they could bring to life.

For some reason it would have been seen as poor form to make themselves the centre of attention by donning such an extravagant costume themselves, so inevitably the job was passed to one of their many underlings and hangers on. Some, such as Madame herself, relied upon a trusted servant, while others made a show of their favourite lover and still others enlisted the skills of a professional performer of some ilk who was aware of the nature of the thing and still willing to play the part to the best of their ability.

Eleanor herself helped to transform the ballroom of the penthouse from an elegant chamber of notable size into a decadent recreation of what a riotous toyshop might have looked like as seen through the eyes of an unrepentant libertine. As she hung banners and arranged props, she could not help but wonder where she would be positioned on the night of the ball itself and what strange things she would see.

When the time came, she found that it would be Madame herself who would personally attend to the task of preparing her for the festivities. The need for her to be as close to perfection as possible meant that the older woman would not contemplate leaving the job to another soul.

Eleanor felt a twinge of self-conscious anxiety as she began to unbutton her uniform with Madame no more than a few feet from where she stood. But a moment later she was struck by the relatively tame nature of simply undressing in the other woman's presence when held against what she would ultimately be doing in no more than an hour's time before more than a hundred strangers.

Quickly she popped the last of the buttons on the black dress and allowed it to fall to the floor around her feet. She had already removed her boots and so she simply stepped out of the garment and onto the floor in her stocking feet. Her black shift came off over the head, leaving her standing in only her underwear as she instantly started to peel off her black stockings. She unhooked her bra, cupping her breasts as she pulled it off before allowing them to hang free and naked. Finally she pulled off her knickers and stood devoid of all clothing as she waited for the next instruction to be given.

Madame gave her an encouraging smile as she walked to her side.

She carried the rubber suit over one arm, managing the thing despite its weight and awkward shape with relative ease and Eleanor felt her skin prickle with anticipation as it came closer.

"Feet first," Madame held the suit open in front of her, "if you please."

Eleanor raised her left leg and gingerly slipped it into the unzipped hole that yawned in the back of the costume. The feel of the cool rubber against her skin was like nothing she had felt before and she was reminded of the sensation of sinking a foot into yielding sand or cold mud. This was joined by a realisation of just how tight the suit would be as her foot made its way further down the leg of the costume. By the time she wriggled the same foot into the hoof at the bottom, the thing had become so tight that she swore nothing could have been slid between her skin and the rubber in top of it.

Her right leg followed and once it was firmly ensconced in the suit, Madame began to pull the rubber up and around Eleanor's buttocks. Soon when she looked down she could have been convinced that she had been picked up and dipped in liquid rubber to the waist as the costume clung so closely to her legs and groin. In addition she could feel the tightness as it pressed against her backside and her vagina at the same time, making her aware of the fact that those parts of her body were faithfully reflected in the costume as well.

A sudden prod from behind made Eleanor look over her shoulder just in time to see Madame attach the tail to her rum via a socket sunk into the latex. Combined with the sight of the hooves at her feet, she could not help but become a little excited at the prospect of coming ever closer to the sight of herself as a rubber rocking horse. As she held out her arms to allow them to be slipped into the sleeves of the costume, Eleanor risked one more glance over her shoulder. She shook her buttocks and delighted in the way in which the tail swished back and forth.

The sleeves swallowed her arms far more quickly that the lower half of the costume had her legs and as Madame placed her breasts inside the cups that would support them within the suit, Eleanor pondered the blunt hooves that covered her hands. Oddly, now that she was considering them as a part of the whole and not simply a restraint that bound her hands and made them useless, she found that she was not in the slightest concerned by them. Instead she held them up and turned them over, imagining the experience of walking on all fours with hooves instead of hands and feet, feeling her tail brush her thighs as she went.

Moments later Madame was guiding the equine hood over her head and taking pains to ensure that the thing sat perfectly upon Eleanor's cranium. She opened her eyes and for the first time saw down the length of the long snout at almost the same time as she felt the pouch inside the mouth of the hood being eased into her own. She was allowed to breathe by hidden channels between her nostrils and the nose of the hood, but the pouch in the mouth was for quite different purposes.

Once she had closed the zip and sealed Eleanor into the costume, Madame had her sit while she completed the intricate task of teasing lengths of hair through holes in the back of the hood. These were positioned in a line from the crown all the way down to the start of Eleanor's back and as the red hair emerged, they gave the impression of a mane to match the tail already mounted above her buttocks.

When the task was complete, Eleanor rose to her hooved feet and made her way awkwardly to the empty frame that awaited her. She knelt in position at Madame's instructions as concealed supports took the weight of her limbs and she settled onto the frame, trying to ignore the way that it shifted beneath her. The older woman wasted no time in fastening the straps that would bind Eleanor's limbs to the frame and once she was sure the girl was comfortable, she stood back and surveyed her work.

Suddenly aware that she was no longer being fitted into place, Eleanor looked up and sought out the mirror that had been set up for her to see her own reflection. There was no way she could have been prepared for the sight of her own eyes staring back at herself from the visage of a rubber horse, but then who would? Her gaze darted this way and that as she tried to make sense of the combination of woman and horse that she saw in the glass, the mixture of rubber and red hair that straddled the frame and began to rock gently back and forth as she cast her head about.

Had she been looking at her own familiar face, it was possible that Eleanor's reaction would have been one of shock or horror. But as it was she instead found herself looking into that of a strange creature that had the body of a woman and the visage of a horse, while at the same time had been bound to a pair of runners that tamed its body and would not allow it to escape.

Eleanor found that more than anything else, she wanted to touch her own rubber skin and feel for herself the texture of her strangely altered and yet undeniably desirable form. She twisted and flexed as much as she was able, instantly frustrated by the limited motion that her position as a rocking horse afforded her. But then it dawned on her that if she could not touch her own body, then the next best thing would be to experience the sensation of somebody else doing so instead.

As Madame strapped an ornate leather saddle to her back and wound reigns over her nose, Eleanor was lost in contemplation of what she would feel when others began to explore the shape of her body. The older woman said something to her, but she was too engrossed in her own thoughts to hear. Inside her head the thoughts of being stroked and played with were becoming ever more consuming and she was hardly aware of the fact that with each moment that passed there was less room in there for anything that might have been to do with herself as an individual woman as opposed to a human toy that was so looking forward to being played with for the first time.