Mansion Invitation (Part 7)

--Part 7--

LILLY: Good morning again, sleepyhead.
LILLY: <3
LILLY: Today we're going to start with another choice of outfit. Remember those choices? :3
LILLY: But I'll give you some time again. You've got until 12, remember that.
LILLY: Let me know if there's anything you want, I don't think anything you might want would be any inconvenience at all.
LILLY: Well, besides more time, of course.

You're still not used to smelling like flowers and feeling all soft when you wake up, so of course you come out of sleep disoriented. Your mind feels... Soft, and fuzzy. Bleh, you think, you're gonna have to spend a while getting used to this. Then you shake your head - no! You're not going to get used to this at all, since it'll stop soon - and clear your thoughts of any crazy ideas you're supposed to not be considering. As you do, those headphones fall off. Oh! You must have gone to sleep listening to that music, whoops.

After briefly rubbing the sleep out of your eyes, you sit up, stretching and yawning for a long time before finally checking your phone. Seeing Lilly's message, you smile a little bit. The nightie is still on, though, urgh. Time to get out of this thing! You take a moment to think on that subject, and then, you realize you forgot Lilly took all your normal clothing. Also that there isn't any other clothing but what those closets foist on you when you go in.

YOU: Hey.
LILLY: Yes?
YOU: Uh. Can I have something better to wear?
LILLY: :3
YOU: Stop that.
LILLY: No.
LILLY: So, want something better to wear then? Want a more casual skirt until I change you for the game, then? Or would you prefer the catgirl outfit?
YOU: You do still have my normal clothes, right? Can I at least wear some of that until your game?
LILLY: Aw, are we gonna have to have this talk again?.
LILLY: Well, I mean, the whole stay here is just one overarching game, and not having those was one of the first rules. I even got that grudging implied agreement!
YOU: You're just trying to find some interpretation of this that'll let you stick me in a dress constantly.
LILLY: Well you can't blame me.
YOU: I can absolutely blame you.
YOU: I'm blaming you right now, that's what's happening, I can do it. I'll keep doing it, actually, I've been blaming you for wanting to stick me in a dress this entire time.
LILLY: You can't blame me for the fact that you look so cute in a dress.
YOU: Please can we not get off subject? I'd like my clothes back.
LILLY: SIGH.
LILLY: Okaaaaay.
LILLY: How about a deal?
YOU: The deal last time went really badly for me.
LILLY: "Badly" is such a harsh word for it.
LILLY: I think it went really well!
YOU: It went really well for you, not for me.
LILLY: Well, I guess I'll just get that nice dress ready for you then, if you don't even want to hear the deal. Maybe even get rid of these old clothes.
YOU: No!!
LILLY: Oh don't get worked up, I wouldn't really do that, you trust me that much at least right? Though it'd be really cute to send you home in a dress, you squirming all the way home would be amazing. But that'd probably make you miserable, definitely don't want that. Seriously, though, come on. At least hear me out.
YOU: Okay, what's the deal?
LILLY: Makeup.
YOU: What?
LILLY: You can wear your normal boring clothes. But when you're wearing the dresses, you have to wear a little makeup too.
YOU: No way. Definitely no, absolutely not happening.
LILLY: So you'd rather wear dresses the entire time, then?
LILLY: :3
YOU: Stop that.
LILLY: No.
YOU: No I don't want to wear dresses the entire time.
LILLY: Because it's embarrassing, right?
YOU: Right.
LILLY: But would constantly wearing dresses be more embarrassing than wearing some makeup? I mean, the makeup would just be a little extra on the limited time I'm dressing you up. Right?
YOU: Right.
LILLY: So you'd actually get a net gain in dignity.
YOU: What?
LILLY: If you take my deal and start wearing makeup when I dress you up in exchange for wearing your boring old normal clothes when you're not dressed up, it'd actually mean a net gain in dignity.
YOU: I'm confused.
LILLY: Well, assuming the difference in dignity between infrequent dresses plus makeup and infrequent dresses minus makeup is less than the difference in dignity between infrequent dresses plus makeup and constant dresses.

What the fresh hell is she even talking about, none of this makes sense.

LILLY: If we take a low estimate of the perceived dignity loss of the makeup then we wind up with the deal being a net gain for both of us, since you prioritize dignity while I prioritize cuteness during game times.
YOU: Okay professor, dial the arbitrary abstract conceptual comparisons back a bit, this is getting kinda dumb.
YOU: Jeeze...
YOU: I guess I'll take the deal.
LILLY: :3
YOU: Stop that.
LILLY: No.
YOU: But nothing too severe, right?
LILLY: Augh, no, definitely nothing tasteless or overdone. I don't think you'll even notice if you're not looking for it. Just enough to soften your face up a little more and make you look a little cuter.
YOU: I'm not sure whether or not to be relieved or even more worried.
LILLY: You should probably go with both.
YOU: Sounds like good advice.
LILLY: I always give you good advice.

That's technically true, at least of everything up to the part where she started giving you advice that ended up with you in dresses.

The closet pops open quickly and from the strange and inscrutable darkness it ejects a change of your normal clothing. Oh thank goodness. You tear yourself out of this getup, and since this process is so much less interesting than its reverse it's left without description. When you're done, you're already convincing yourself already that this was definitely a good trade. There's a glance in the mirror as you look yourself up and down. Definitely a guy. As per the norm, your severe denial prevents you from acknowledging any effeminate nature in your appearance, and luckily saves you from noticing a slightly softer face and a slightly more slender body.

For now you've got time. You wound up waking up at a fairly early time again, around 9 AM or so. Another breakfast. A nice little oatmeal-based thing that exploits your grievous culinary sin of overuse of a sugar-cinnamon mix alongside mixed berries, plus another smoothie. You do not care what anyone says, you love this stuff.

You savor it as much as the last breakfast. Lilly manifests such a nicely stocked kitchen. You can't really begrudge what she does when she's also providing so generously for you. You really could get used to something like this. It would be really nice to live here, you think. Well, if Lilly wasn't constantly foisting weird games and outfits on you. It's definitely going to be nice to stay in for rest of today and tomorrow, before you head home.

Besides the dresses, you remind yourself one more time. You keep needing to do that.

Anyway, with your breakfast of champions (literally, given your win on yesterday's game) now completed, you turn your attention towards relaxing and kicking back in the time you have between now and... Whatever game is going to be done. After all, Lilly might be in the middle of the reveal of a titanic lie of omission combined with weird and questionable hospitality, but she's still your friend of several years.

So you might as well hang out with her.

And thus you spend approximately two hours on silly shenanigans. This time you take Lilly on in some go-kart racing game of some description, over on one of the game consoles in the entertainment room. And, of course, as is by now per the norm, you and Lilly engage in banter throughout it.

LILLY: Totally shameful.
YOU: What?
LILLY: Can't believe you get all embarrassed about dresses but you just have absolutely no shame at all about using the blue shell item.
YOU: It's a legitimate item in this game!
LILLY: It's a cardinal sin.
YOU: Says the ghost.
LILLY: Seriously. New cardinal sins. Wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, sloth, pride, greed, and blue shells.
LILLY: That's how it goes now.
LILLY: This is the new moral paradigm.
YOU: Sounds legit. But how to absolve myself of this sin?
LILLY: There's only one way. Commit sudoku.
YOU: I don't think that word means what you think it means.
LILLY: Number puzzles as penance, it's the only way.
YOU: Your obsession with games is actually kind of weird. This sounds worse than the mouse game. Are you sure you want to be that cruel?
LILLY: You don't know half of cruelty from me yet >:3
YOU: Jesus those eyebrows are an intimidating twist on your catface.
LILLY: Oh, right, eyebrows.
LILLY: Gotta remember to shape your eyebrows into a better feminine way.
YOU: Oh come on, that was not part of the deal at all, you can't start going all Darth Vader on our agreements.
LILLY: This is what I love about you. No matter what I poke at, there's always a little bit of resistance that I can have fun popping. You're like psychological bubble wrap!
YOU: That metaphor has me swinging rapidly between being disturbed and amused.
LILLY: Oh, you know you like it, I'm not the only one enjoying that part of you here, we both know you love a girl laying affection on you like that. Here, we'll make it a game. I'll wager it on the next race. I get to do your eyebrows if I win?
YOU: I need a concession if I win, you know. How about no mascara this whole stay if I win?
LILLY: Deal.
YOU: Let's do this.

You aren't sure what disturbs you more: The fact that this feminization she's doing to you has, within the span of less than 48 hours, become a normal thing you can joke about and make bets on, or the sudden and incredible skill she abruptly began to show when more of your masculinity got wagered. This is a circuitous way of saying you lost, badly.

Damn it, Lilly.

LILLY: :3
LILLY: :3 :3 :3
YOU: At least the body hair removal is something I can sort of hide. I'm gonna have a hard time explaining this back home.
LILLY: No you won't, you told me yourself how little you actually talk with them.
LILLY: Don't worry about it, I'm sure you won't have to explain anything to anyone back home.
LILLY: I promise it won't be too bad, okay?
YOU: Sigh.
LILLY: I can still hear the actual sighs, you don't need to type that out.
LILLY: Also I promise I'm not going to do anything that's going to embarrass you in front of people you really care about, okay? That's not healthy at all and it would actually be needlessly cruel.
LILLY: There's a lot of domain spirits that would get their kicks out of it but I'm not one of them.
YOU: Jesus, you're the lighter side of this? I'd hate to see the darker side. Remind me to never meet any other domain spirits.
LILLY: Oh um.
LILLY: That's
LILLY: This is gonna be really awkward, I think.
YOU: Lilly?
LILLY: OH LOOK AT THE TIME

You look at the time.

LILLY: TIME TO START THE GAME

God damn it.

YOU: Hey, can we be serious for a moment before you possess something to foist me over to some closet?
YOU: Those things you just said were actually kind of troubling.
LILLY: I promise things will be fine.
LILLY: Do you trust me?
YOU: Yes.
LILLY: I'll tell you that today's game will have more people than just me and you.
YOU: Hey, woah, that's bad.
LILLY: And I promise it won't be anything that I can imagine would make you actually miserable.
YOU: Just... Fake miserable?
LILLY: You insist on forcing yourself be unhappy often enough that that's a real thing for you, yes.
YOU: I really wish that wasn't a fair point.
YOU: But still.
YOU: Exposing me to other people because I was dumb enough to let all this go on? I don't think that's cool at all.
LILLY: Alright. Okay, that's a completely fair concern. If you're really uncomfortable with people other than me seeing this, I can cancel the game, and maybe pick up something else if you give me some time.
LILLY: But please at least think about this. I know you're easily embarrassed, but I promise nobody will think badly of you about this. I know it sounds a little weird, but I'm actually kind of proud of you.
YOU: Yeah, you're right, that sounds really weird.
LILLY: No! Not in that way. I mean, just, I've got you doing all these really great things that normally you wouldn't do. Normally anyone wouldn't do them! But you do, and you're just so CUTE when you do too. You're a really rare kind of person. And I guess I just... Kinda wanna show off, you know?
YOU: Show off?
LILLY: How lucky I am and how cute you are and all that. I mean, you know how that's like, right? I just want to show off a little bit. I know it's kind of immature, though, especially if you'd be that unhappy.

You think about it. For a long time. When you finally respond, it's grudging, and with the feeling that you should have thought about it for an even longer time.

YOU: Alright, fine.
LILLY: :3!!!!
YOU: That was a lot of exclamation marks.
LILLY: It was a lot of exclamation!
LILLY: I promise you won't regret this!
LILLY: Or at least that you'll only regret it a little bit!
LILLY: Eeeeeeeeee, they're gonna be so impressed!

You are beginning to reconsider. Of course, you don't actually have time for this, because the lights are already flickering. A blanket rises from the back of the nearby couch, whirls around you as if it were forming a cocoon, and whisks you away, out of the room, towards one of the bedrooms. You consider the ramifications of the fact that in the span of less than three days you've become so experienced in dealing with Lilly that you can actually intuit the fact that the "body language" of this gesture was happy and enthusiastic. Rolling your eyes and sighing at the gusto she's putting on display here, you squirm all the way to the bedroom where this closet awaits. This one's more of a servant's quarters sort of thing, clearly more practical, and yet still intensely feminine.

You're deposited straight into the waiting doorway of the closet, and into its traditional pitch blackness. You've been in here enough times to know what happens next. It's sort of troubling, to be honest, that this is a routine of any sort for you, after just two days or so. In spite of knowing exactly what's going on, and even in spite of having agreed to it, you find yourself struggling and writhing through the process. Not in a panic, by any means. It just seems the natural response when thusly restrained. As is per the norm, the fabric rushing around you slips over your body gently, but quite firmly, binding you in place with your arms straight up, and your legs straight down.

This is, of course, to quickly strip you, removing all of your clothing in a simple, unified motion that has an unfortunate side-effect of disorienting you as your shirt rushes over your head. Now completely naked, your squirming only gets more urgent when things start wrapping around you, sliding up your limbs, in a familiar sensation. A silky, smooth sensation goes over your arms and onto your chest, while a similar feeling is drawn up your legs. Another bra again, what is that even FOR?! You're pondering this for a moment when something clamps around your midsection, squeezing your stomach as it goes around you. You can feel it tighten gradually as laces are pulled. Is this a corset? It closes, but doesn't squeeze quite enough to be uncomfortable.

You're about to shout out in an indignant way when you're suddenly feeling that familiar silky sensation go up both feet, then the calves, and then the thighs, before an abrupt click alerts you that it's been attached to the corset. She's finally escalated from kneesocks to stockings, apparently, much to your embarrassment. Your arms go down, suddenly, as something loose slips over your body, but it doesn't stay loose for very long. Your arms go through short sleeves as something goes over your shoulders as something lacy, with a high neckline fastens itself up. You feel something else rush up your legs, something fluffy, ruffled, and light that spreads out from your body. There's no way that's not a petticoat, and that means whatever just rushed up you is a full dress.

Soft sensations shoot up both arms, up past the elbows, ruffled in their own subtle way, wrapping around each finger. Those are definitely very opera gloves, and you can feel the lacy trim at the edge, where they meet your forearm. You're still kicking around when something slips onto your feet and fastens, buckling over your feet. Something slips into your hair, shifting it around as it does, a headpiece of some kind, and you have a terrible suspicion you already know what it is...

And then, quickly as it started, the rush of clothing stops, suddenly ejecting you from the closet. Like various times before, you wind up landing on your back, on the bed. You take a moment to rest, recovering from the exhausting process. This turns out to be a mistake, a fact you only realize when the lights flicker again. The blanket wraps around your body too quickly for you to react, mummifying you almost instantly from the neck down in a soft but very tight bind. You renew your struggling, trying to squirm your way out, but it seems to be wrapped quite securely all the way down. On one hand, you can't move. But hey, on the other hand, you can't see the dress you're in. So, win some, lose some.

The haunted blanket glides over to the vanity dresser that takes up much of the opposite wall, seating you just in front of it. The mirror is all fogged over, for some baffling reason. The fog on the mirror wipes away in clean letters. Oh, you get it now, Lilly's doing that cliche ghost movie thing where the mirror gets fogged and she does the fog finger-writing. It even writes out in the syntax of your phone, in crisp, clean, small letters, albeit with rather girly handwriting. This is such a weird juxtaposition of strange ghostly shenanigans and completely mundane tendencies of Lilly's. You roll your eyes a little bit.

LILLY: Sorry about that, I just want to make sure you don't see yourself until everything's all done!
LILLY: I can't do it all at once, but I can make sure it's hidden until it's done.
LILLY: Now we're gonna do what you agreed to.
LILLY: :3
LILLY: Makeup time!

The drawers open all at once. Makeup products rise, ominously, out of it.

LILLY: Close your eyes, I promise it'll be fast :3

You oblige, and it is rather fast. Something soft over your face, one last bit of cleaning, before what feels like a moisturizing lotion is applied all throughout, gently and softly rubbing against you... The slow and gentle motions are relaxing, and your last squirming subsides with them. Next, a somewhat cooler sensation, as whatever strange, ghostly mechanism Lilly is using spreads what you can only assume is primer over much of your face now.

Then there's the soft sensation of a brush dabbing over you, tenderly spreading, blending, and caringly applying what you guess to be foundation, and then another session of the brushing, pleasant sensation as she sets it, before focusing on your cheeks with what's likely a slight application of blush. You feel just the smallest bit of eyeshadow go over your lids, only barely enough to even tell you got it applied, and then the cool feeling of lipstick deftly going over your lips. Then, all in the span of about a second, several slight pinching motions as, you assume, Lilly does her eyebrow shaping. Damn it, this is gonna be hard to explain, but at least it didn't hurt... And then things seem to settle down.

You wait for a while, before you open your eyes. There's a message that was left for you, in the re-fogged mirror.

LILLY: Now hold still for the next bit, just finishing off.

You're confused, but now that your eyes are open, there's a quick, inhumanly fast swish of motion in front of you as your newly opened eyes allow mascara to be applied. On the one hand, Lilly is making sure you aren't inconvenienced, but on the other hand, it drives home just how little control you have over this situation. Blinking a few times, you look around, somewhat startled. Before Lilly writes yet another message.

LILLY: Oh my god oh my god oh my god
LILLY: Eeeeeeeeeeeee
LILLY: This is amazing. You really pull this off fantastically.
LILLY: I know you can't hear it but just sort of imagine me squeeing pretty much constantly.
LILLY: I'm more impressed with you than I am with my work here.
LILLY: You look so pretty and you're so cute! I'm actually really envious!
LILLY: Are you ready to see yourself?
LILLY: That's rhetorical, you're just about to anyway!

In one motion, the blanket rises, bringing you up to a standing position, and then releasing you with a flourish so that you land on your own feet, albeit unsteadily. As you steady yourself, you feel your new clothes swishing about you, but you've not had the chance to see them. You're too distracted by the mirror suddenly wiping its fog away completely, revealing the end product of this makeover all at once.

There's two girls, of sorts, in the mirror. We'll discuss them in order of proximity.

The first is you. And, to be quite honest, the simple fact is that, right now, any semblance of masculinity in you is a completely false thing that you're perceiving because of your denial. You observe your body, first and foremost; the face and the shape are almost completely unfamiliar. If you had been shown a picture of yourself completely without context, you would have thought it was someone else completely. The only reason you're able to recognize yourself is, quite honestly, because you're specifically looking for features shared between your face and "hers". And even those features are androgynous at best. Your face is soft and girlish, any hard edges gone under the makeup, your hair framing your face perfectly in a subtle feminine styling, your waist drawn in. You're pretty sure Lilly padded that bra a little bit too. Nothing much, but just enough to make sure nobody would see a flat chest there.

It's a cliche, but frankly, you have gone from your previous androgyny (even if you denied it intensely) to simply looking like a girl completely. The outfit didn't help, though. Starting at the bottom, you've got a pair of black maryjanes, buckled snugly with just the slightest hint of heel - enough to look feminine, but not enough to make an unpracticed boy fall - going over a set of sheer stockings that rise up your slender legs all the way under your skirt, which has fallen just above your knees due to the light, fluffy petticoat keeping it nicely spread out. An apron drapes down to the skirt, its ruffled edge perfectly aligned with the skirt itself to spread cutely over the knee area.

Above the black skirt of the dress and the lower starched-whiteness of the apron, the dress takes on a familiar "meido" look, the apron tying off in the back in a big, poofy bow that seems to defy logic and physics, while the dress itself takes on many tastefully feminine bits of white trim and lace, even going so far as to have a variety of ribbons on display. The shoulders, next to the ruffled straps of the apron, puff out a bit and end in distinctly frilly sleeves. There's only a small amount of your skin shown before your arms are covered in the elegant white opera gloves, bearing, at their openings, their own bands of lacy trim. Frills and lace are a common theme here, you're seeing, as you examine the high neck that pokes out from under the apron. The collar of the dress is formal, with a simple black ribbon tied around your neck to give a little bit of added prettiness, as if you needed it at all.

Above that is your face, and you don't want to think any more about it at the moment. Adorning your hair is a subtle but intensely feminine maid's headband, with the most frills the accessory could have without becoming overdone. There's a ribbon tied in a bow to the side, set at a jaunty angle, holding some of your deftly styled hair back and in a feminine shape that frames your face, and the rest of the dress, perfectly.

The first thing you think is that you want to will yourself out of existence out of sheer shame. The blush Lilly applied to your face is completely unneeded when you're turning a bright shade of red all on your own from the embarrassment of the situation. The second thing you think is that this might actually turn out okay. You look... very different. This situation really sort of anonymizes you, making a sort of alternate identity. That idea is, quite honestly, very appealing. If indulging this won't affect your standing negatively with the one person who knows, then... Maybe it might be okay. That is the thought you're thinking when it's interrupted by your phone suddenly going off, on the ground near the closet.

But you don't pick it up to respond. Not yet, anyway.

This is because the second girl, the one referred to earlier, is visible. Well, not quite. As with you, she's only a girl of sorts. Whereas you're mostly a girl overlayed on the body of a boy, this is only mostly a girl; she's transparent, drifting just behind you. It's Lilly. You're looking at Lilly. You turn away from the mirror and... She's right there behind you, staring at you. You can't hear her, but she's assumed the posture and expression of a girl who's engaging in a long, sustained fangirl squeal as she stares at you. You stare right through her. It's kind of freaking you out a little bit, which is probably good, because to be honest you needed a distraction from this feminization.

She doesn't seem to realize you're looking at her. So you go to the phone. As you do, the floating spectral form of Lilly is typing on what looks like a spectral... smartphone. Really? The ghost of a phone? Well, after so many phones dying, some of them had to leave some ghosts. This is the logic you completely fail to actually think coherently as you look at this spectral vision of your friend.

LILLY: Eeeeeeeeee, with the dress AND the makeup you look so cute!!
LILLY: I have a maid and she's so cute it would give me a heart attack if I still had a heart, this is even better than the kitty outfit!
LILLY: Oh my god they're going to be SO JEALOUS!!!
YOU: Lilly.
LILLY: ?
YOU: I can see you.
LILLY: what

Her squeeing seems to stop for a moment. She looks straight at you, and you look straight back at her. A long pause hangs in the air like a neighbor's absurdly loud wind chimes: Obstructing all conversation, and threatening to never leave. Her face is blank, the sort of expression she'd have if you just grew a second head. This pause must last at least half a minute, maybe even longer.

But then a wide, catlike smile spreads over her face.

YOU: Stop that.

She doesn't stop. Instead she shakes her head to say "no", and types, silently, excitedly, on what you are now mentally incapable of calling anything besides GhostPhone™.

LILLY: You accepted it a bit! You accepted it just a little bit!
LILLY: Oooh, you must have accepted a bit with the cat game too if people can see me now!
LILLY: I can be visible outside the closets now! You accepted it a little bit!!
LILLY: Oh this is amazing!!! Can you hear me?
YOU: No, I can't seem to hear you. And I think this is slanderous, to say I've accepted anything.
LILLY: I wouldn't be visible if you hadn't!
YOU: Please don't embarrass me even more like this.
LILLY: No no no! Please don't feel bad about this.
LILLY: This is good!
YOU: What?
LILLY: This is really good. You did something great for me!
LILLY: Thank you so much!
YOU: What do you mean?
LILLY: When domain spirits like me get concessions like this, we sort of... gain manifestation ability!
LILLY: You accepted this stuff I was doing! Like, on a deeper level. And now I get to be visible, sort of!
LILLY: Thank you thank you thank you!
LILLY: You're already the best maid ever, doing something like this for your mistress!
LILLY: <3 <3 <3

You're trying to get in a word edgewise between all these enthusiastic expressions of gratitude, but... Something about seeing your friend - really seeing her - so happy, and finally sort of understanding the anonymizing part of this dressup game, just makes it... So hard to object. Maybe she's right, maybe on some level you are actually sort of accepting this. Would it really be so bad? Apparently it helps her. And you're not really suffering too much for it, besides a lot of embarrassment. Would it be so bad if she were right and you acknowledged that for once?

Well, maybe. If this weird system by which she gains actual capacity by literally foisting change on you is a real thing and she's not just messing with you with some fake system to make you think you're in some bad fantasy novel. If she just gains her weird ghost power from you accepting things, then maybe you might--

Your thoughts about the terrible and possibly-selfish implications of this are interrupted by a ring of the doorbell. It almost sends you into a panic. It's a final point that hammers home that you're going to be dealing with other people here at the mansion.

LILLY: Oh! They're here!

--End Part 7--