Suitable Subject - Part One

Shuffling down the street in the wee hours of the morning I do my best to keep my eyes open. Empty disposable coffee cup in hand I try to focus on the pot of dark roasted coffee I had left on the warmer at home, the reward I had made for myself before heading out before the sun had even rose.

Hopefully it had been worth it but I wouldn't know for months, the job agency working in mysterious and glacial ways.

 

As I reach out to push the doors open to my building I'm nearly knocked over as Gracie, my goth upstairs neighbor, tumbles out the doorway. Dressed in part in her work uniform, black slacks and a white coffee stained button-up shirt, I stare as she fumbles to get her apron on as she bolts down the street.

Slipping in the doorway and into the warm lobby I'm forced to dodge aside as Stacy, Gracie's blonde and bubbly roommate, races out the door after her gloom roomy. "Hey!" she barks in her usual sweet and giggly voice. "I'm not done..." she continues to shout after her roommate, the sound of her voice soon being muffled by the door as it closes.

Reaching the stairs I hear the sound of stomping heavy footfalls rapidly approach behind me. Spinning around I watch as Fiona, my soft and bottom heavy ex-girlfriend, storms off around from the laundry room with a basket of sopping wet clothes in hand.

"Bitch!" shrieks a familiar and terrible voice, a shiver running up my spine as another set of footsteps quickly follow after Fiona. "You don't in fucking live here you fucking wh..." Emily, my landlords bitchy yet unfortunately attractive granddaughter, snaps as she chases after my escaping ex. The towering athletic redhead is only cowed as a sharp hiss escapes her lips, a withered pale hand pinching at her ear as she is dragged down towards the shrunken shape of Rachel.

"She's welcome to use the facilities dear" Rachel, the elderly and still fairly curvy landlord, muses in a dangerously sweet tone. Her granddaughter flinches as the words reach her rapidly reddening ear, a life time of being kept under the old woman's thumb having trained her for compliance.

As I slowly drag myself up the stairs towards the 4th floor the sounds of un-intelligible shout echo down from above.

"...ay right where you are young lady!" cries a booming feminine voice, the sound quickly being followed by the slamming of a door. I step towards the railing as I watch Kelly, the artistic college freshman from down the hall, race down the stairs with a bag of art supplies under one arm and a laptop in the other.

"Do! Not! Slam! The!..." the booming voice calls out, only to quieten down as I slowly climb into view from the stairwell. I'm met with the mortified expression of Margaret, the soft and doughy blonde newly wed, staring down at me as she realises I heard just who might have heard her outburst.

"Keep... It... Down..." hisses a tired voice from the hallway, the color almost completely vanishing from Margaret's face as she turns to the source of the noise. As I creep up to the landing I peer around the corner, my eyes going wide as I too shrink away. Haley, the pear-shaped Thai newly minted stay-at-home-mother, stands in her doorway with large bags under her eyes and in a rather dirty loose t-shirt. "She... just... got... to..." she begins to hiss, flinching as the sound of a crying baby screeches out from deeper in her home.

Without any change to her death glare Haley rushes back into, a meek and anxious Margaret quickly plodding back into her home as well. Sighing to myself I shuffle towards my home, taking an effort to be as quiet as I can before unlocking the door.

"It's too early for this..." I sigh softly, kicking off my shoes as I stagger inside. As I pass the TV I quickly turn it on, the last video quickly starting up again as I move to snatch the pot of warm coffee from the kitchen counter.

'New experiences can sometimes require a new you'

I wince as I hear the jingly bells chirp through my TV's speakers, the same annoying add I had seen a thousand times before quickly playing before any real content can start.

'From holidays to weddings, diving in the skies or the seas, you can make any experience one to remember with the help of Suitable'

With a deep sigh I pour my coffee before pacing my way back over towards the TV, looking for the remote with as much focus as I can muster in he hopes of shutting up the advert.

'Search our range of options big and small, or, with just a single hair make a gift to..."

With a click the ad ceases, the video quickly starting in earnest as I collapse into my couch with a loud and relieved sigh. I'd been forced to see these ads nearly daily since they started trying to push them into the market, likely due to having unfortunately mentioned the fact I thought they were interesting to a neighbor in passing.

"Not like I can afford one anyway" I sigh, my eyelids growing heavy as I sip at my coffee.

Suitable itself had not been around for a very long time, the small start up honestly struggling more so with cost and effective marketing than the product itself. It was difficult to explain to someone why they needed a spare body, more so when it came to having an identical copy of themselves or someone they knew.

For most people it was seen as terrible pervert shit, which to be fair is how most of the suits were used in the early days as people made either exact copies or close facsimiles of the rich and famous or simply people they knew for their own perverse desires.

However, as time had gone on Suitable did find a niche in certain spaces, allowing them to maintain a steady revenue stream. From hotels offering 'Beach Bodies' for guests to schools allowing teachers to quite literally 'substitute' when someone was on leave, a growing number of sales soon made the bold company push their suits to the consumer at large.

These odd rubber suits bound themselves to the wearer, molding the wearer like a simply set of bones and soft tissue to fit the suits shape. After only a matter of minutes most people would struggle to even notice the wearer had been anyone other than who the suit was designed to look like, with only the most canny eye catching the faint outline of the zipper only the back.

Though this too would slowly smooth out as the suit practically made itself at home, the imperfections being kneaded out and hidden until the suit and its host where all that remained. Of course, this was not a permanent transformation. Regardless of what X-Ray scans or merely poking and prodding told you the wearer was still in there... just... no one really knew where most of them went.

Whether it was a customer suit, designed using the 'character creator' available on the Suitable website or a copy of another person's shape, the known aspect of just where the extra mass inside the suit went led to a lot of experimentation and some curious discoveries.

Hidden on forums and scant Reddit posts, people began to notice that if you slipped other things into a suit before someone slipped the thing on it could lead to interesting results. Termed Add-Ons by these communities, short lists of these experiments began to be compiled though many were simply lost to deletion and take down notices.

From remote control vibrators being able to control the arousal of the person in the suit to the inclusion of dildos or fleshlights effecting their sexual orientation, the first forays into this space were of course sexual in nature. Next came the shock collars, giving the one with the remote an in-built way to demand compliance, and the locks which would hide the zipper until the corresponding key was swallowed.

IDs, clothing, and even dictionaries were used to compel the body and mind of the wearer, forcing them to refer to themselves as whoever was on the ID, dress in a certain manner, or even speak in a completely different language.

From the clothing came the discovery of push-up bra's leaving the wearer with permanently perky breasts, which was soon followed by the more perverted or practical discovery that a bottle of milk could force lactation. Lastly, and rarely used was the discovery that a used condom filled with seed would immediately result in a pregnancy should the suit be able to carry a child.

 

My eyes flutter open as I find myself on the sofa, my half finished coffee thankfully resting in my lap. The TV blares out with the same Suitable commercial a thousand times before, a low groan escaping my lips as I lazily slap about for the remote.

"Too..." I huff, my hand soon finding the remote as I skip the add. "Expensive..." I groan, rolling my head back as I feel just how cold the coffee mug is with my free hand.

Slowly heaving myself up I begin to shuffle towards the kitchen, my footsteps staggering to a halt as I hear a loud series of knocks from my front door. Looking over my shoulder I wait for a moment, my brain still processing what I had heard before another more panicked set of knocks fill my cosy living space.

Rubbing the sleep from my eyes I slowly plod towards the door, my gait picking up in speed as the knocks grow practically frantic. Just as the knocks turn to banging I pull the door open as I find myself looking at a bundle of rubbery skin and...