“Now, see, we were gonna be nice,” Rosa said, “and let you take the shirt off whenever you wanted. But since you wanna be hardheaded, you have to do it our way.” As she spoke, I felt a weird sensation at the base of my neck. I reached for the spot where I felt the weird feeling, and found what felt like a thick piece of foil on the back of my neck.

“That’s the electrode,” Della said, grinning wickedly. “And now you find out what happens when you choose to be stubborn.” The shirt forced my arms back in front of me, and the gloves began to button the shirt more or less by themselves. I mean, they were on my hands, but I wasn’t directing their actions.

But as strange as that sensation was, the shirt itself was generating even stranger ones.

As the shirt sleeves moved my arms so the gloves could button the shirt, the sleeves brushed lightly against the shirt’s “endowments.” And, so help me, I felt it! A little “experimentation” made it clear that somehow the electrode was transmitting contact with the shirt into my nervous system, like the shirt was part of me. A little more probing, and I found that it wasn’t the whole shirt that was “wired” this way, just the solid panels. The “breasts”!

Donna and Rosa snickered and whispered something to each other. Once they composed themselves, Rosa said, “We were gonna set the AI on ‘auto’ and let the gloves play with you of their own volition, without you being able to do anything about it. But Della says to go easy on you, so I’m setting the gloves on 40%. When that little red light on the wall comes on the gloves will start, and you’ll be unable to resist them or the shirt. You’ll be powerless to do anything but comply until the light goes out. The rest of the time, you’ll be able to move freely. Of course, you won’t be able to unbutton the shirt or remove the leggings until the time they’re programmed to come off.”

“You said ‘once the gloves start’?” I said. “Once they start what?”

On cue, the shirt sleeves moved my arms so that the gloves were positioned in front of the shirt, holding the gloves’ index fingers against the shirt, as the gloves began tracing circular patterns against the shirt’s chest!

It took all my willpower not to lose myself in that sensation. My pride was screaming for me to ignore the pleasure these gloves were giving me. Finally I managed to break through the spell I seemed to have fallen into and demanded to be released.

“Check you out,” Rosa said, with a sarcastic edge to her voice. “Like you’re in a position to demand anything.” Then she turned to Della. “Isn’t it time for us to –”

“Yeah,” Della cut in. “I’ll get somebody here to keep an eye on him, so we can go.”

Della said something into what appeared to be an intercom on the wall opposite my cell door. A few seconds later, the little red light came on and the gloves stopped their tracing. At the same time, a shapely pair of jeans sauntered down the corridor towards my cell. As they drew closer I could see translucent white hose extending from the foot openings in the jeans.

Rosa turned to Della. “You sent for one of those to watch him?”

“No,” Della replied. “Must be a glitch somewhere.”

Just like the leggings had earlier, the jeans “deflated” a little, squeezed between the bars to my cell, then resumed normal size once inside. They then walked over to my bunk and sat down, whereupon the leggings began playing footsie with the jeans’ hose. Keep in mind I was still wearing the leggings at the time. My mind was abuzz with bewilderment at just how they were able to do this, and with inanimate clothing at that.

Della and Rosa had become so quiet, watching the game of footsie before them, that I forgot they were there. Della managed to tear her eyes away from the scene and mumble something into the wall panel again. When no answer was forthcoming, she yelled out some cryptic-sounding command. I don’t know if the command was for whoever was supposed to be on the monitoring end of the bugs they had planted on me or whoever was working the controls for these clothes, but either way Della’s words seemed to have no effect.

Finally Della looked toward a ceiling grate and yelled, “Is anyone listening out there?”

Nothing came over the intercom but static.

After a while there was a commotion outside, and crowd noises that seemed to be getting louder. Della and Rosa looked outside and gasped. I looked out my own barred window to see what surprised them so. What I saw was a crowd of mannequins, normal-appearing women (fembots, as it turned out), and freestanding clothing of just about every type I could imagine, though there was a large proportion of shapely unoccupied lingerie in the mix.

In time the crowd approached and completely surrounded the house. As the crowd called for the two wayward cops I could see a black stretched Lincoln Town Car approaching the house, accompanied by two normal-length Continentals. They drove around to the other side of the house, so I didn’t really see what happened next, but this is what I was told: The Town Car’s driver’s door opened, and a shapely pinstriped pantsuit with floating chauffeur’s cap got out and walked to the back door. The back door to the Town Car opened, and out came a military fatigue outfit wrapped around yet another curvaceous unseen figure, along with a mannequin in a black pinstripe skirt suit. A bullhorn floated just past the end of the fatigue jacket’s sleeve. It rose into the air and came to a stop just above the open collar of the jacket, and a voice called out, “Della, Rosa, we know you’re in there. Give yourselves up now, and we might be able to work something out.”

Rosa turned to Della. Della stormed down the corridor to the nearest window that could be opened and called out, “We have one of *them* up here, you know. We could make an example of him and show the humans we mean business.” Right at that moment, the jeans that had been playing footsie with my “uniform” leggings jumped up from the bunk and began pacing back and forth just inside the cell door.

The invisible woman with the bullhorn called back, “Don’t do anything stupid, Della. He wasn’t supposed to be mixed up in this, and you know it. You’re in enough trouble already for kidnapping Sharifa. Don’t make it worse. Let the man go.” I heard these exchanges, but remember, I didn’t see who was speaking, since they were on the opposite side of the house.

Della left the window and charged toward my cell. “What are you gonna do?” Rosa asked.

“We’re getting out of here, that’s what,” Della replied. “And we have insurance here to make sure we get out safely.” She opened my cell, grabbed me by my right arm, yanked me up onto my feet, and began pushing me toward the cell door. But right then the pacing jeans ran over and tripped Della. Her keys then floated up and out of her reach as the shirt, leggings, and gloves I was “bound” in came to “life.”