Trick or Trope Ch. 01

Abstract: Every few decades every imaginable trope of All Hallows' Eve gather at a special haunted house for one and only one mysterious purpose, but first the staff must be assembled.

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THE WRETCHED ACOLYTES

Seemingly lost in a void of fog, a tall slender woman wrapped snuggly in a long black gown ventured across a dead grassy meadow. The mist choked out the sunlight around her, making any sense of direction impossible. Fighting the dread that would overwhelm most venturing out on the property, she pushed forward hoping to keep her bearings as she got further away from an abandoned Victorian manor she had left somewhere behind her in the void.

Her dress swathed her legs so tautly down to her ankles with such structure and firmness that it forced her to take the shortest of hobbled strides. Brisk wind swirled leaves around her pushing up harsher along her body to play with the wide brim of her tall cone-shaped hat. In the distance, a slate tile crashed to the ground from the manor's dilapidated roof. The echoes forced an instinctive attempt to turn back to glimpse, to see, but her rigid dress wouldn't allow even a slight twist of her waist or even her shoulders. She almost turned her neck, but too much of that was getting to her as it already ached from previous things that caught her by surprise. She craved simple things, like a quick glance over a shoulder without taking several awkward rapid steps.

Taking a deep breath followed by a sigh, she felt her cleavage forced into raising and lowering against a stiff corset underneath her dress. The long hugging sleeves did nothing to provide warmth against the cold. She rubbed her arms as she thought how her dress felt tighter every day, more so now that the house came to life in anticipation of the coming Halloween. She resented having to wear the damn outfit. It was a curse to wear, an actual curse in fact, with magic that forced her to occupy its limited volume for the rest of her life. She avoided bringing-up those memories and focused on picturing her location on the grounds. She couldn't afford to get lost, so she tightened her grip on the brim of her hat holding it against the wind and resumed her journey towards some overgrown gardens that clearly had seen better days long ago.

The soft wet ground made her excursion harder as her high heels sank into the soggy soil accumulating a stack of harpooned leaves. She cursed her hobble skirt and tried to calm herself after a low hanging tree branch kinked the pointy tip of her witch hat. Her nylon covered toes began to feel the surrounding cold wetness that her thin strapped heels were helpless to insolate against. Almost pouting, she stepped in place a few times trying to remove the leaves skewered by her stilettos. She couldn't reach them by bending over or by lifting a leg up. Her restrictions led her to try a couple times to rub one heel against the other and then give-up. It was hopeless.

She muttered to herself as she grabbed her hobble skirt at her thighs giving the gown a strong pull up her legs, which barely lifted the gown even a finger's width. It seemed to give more than that and she smiled thinking she could finally take some more satisfactory longer strides. In reality, the next few steps where only quicker but the same distance as before. The extra speed led to a loss of balance and forced her to stop. She had to be careful, if she fell over, she wouldn't be able to get up. She imagined herself being forced to endure the embarrassment of rolling across the property like a log.

Focusing on her goal and taking on the patience required, she eventually approached a lonely rotted scarecrow in the center of an abandoned hedge lined garden of weeds and thistles. She minced her steps more and stopped with her arms thrown outwards to steady herself. Finally stable, she withdrew a crystal perfume atomizer bottle from her prow of cleavage and aimed the tiny sprayer at the decomposing farm clothes stuffed with hay. A few squeezes of the atomizer's little red rubber ball sent a glowing green perfume onto the molding potato sack head and hay-bunched hands.

The scarecrow slowly sagged as if getting drenched in a heavy rain. Its arms strained against ropes that bound its wrists, crucifying it to a rusty metal pipe cross. The potato sack head and limp body continued to slouch lifelessly down. It took a couple more minutes, but the green mist somehow took affect. The scarecrow lifted its face up, saw the mysterious woman, turned left and right to look at its tied hands. It struggled, wreathing violently against the ropes. Several clumps of hay began to fall to the ground until it yanked its hands free and stood seven feet tall towering over the witch.

"Come with me," said the woman in black.

The scarecrow gathered its thoughts. It looked down at its hay stuffed overalls and its flannel shirt. It then tried to see through the fog. It felt cold and lost. It craved having someone to hold it. It looked at the witch waiting there. She was as cold as the wind, detached as the standing scarecrow itself, and though stunningly beautiful, a ruthless glare in her eyes burned. She was dangerous and addictive to look at. Men probably died for her not knowing why.

The witch turned away, took several tiny hobbled steps, stopped and without looking back impatiently said sharply, "Well, keep up."

The Scarecrow lurched forward. Several times on the walk, it paused finding no problem in keeping up with the lady in black. It was actually harder to obediently stay a few steps behind given the slow procession. The pace forced it to pause after every few steps allowing it to spend those precious moments watching the lady's swaying hips as she struggled with her tight skirt to navigate every little uneven feature on the ground. The trip was slow, but entertaining and very hypnotic.

Seeing the house come into view, the scarecrow realized the destination and settled back to figuring out its new body and getting ready for whatever was ahead. It twisted the hay coming out of its shirtsleeves giving form to its hands. It then realized it accidentally made more fingers on the left than the right. It made more adjustments. With its new fingers, it felt its face again and fixed its straw hat. Taking a few more steps and almost bumping into the witch, it switched back to watching how the witch's skirt hugged her ass and thighs. The garden guard even secretly reached out to her butt cheeks and gently brushed some hay over the curves to sense every tactile detail. The woman didn't seem to notice, so the urge to do it again rapidly returned.

On examination, the gown was actually a thin black material covering something firm and smooth underneath, possibly - no, on second thought, definitely - constructed with lots of corset boning. Was she wearing leather under there? The tall scarecrow leaned forward while they walked trying to answer the question. Scarecrows, after all, do not have much else going on to think about. It's face was so focused on the undulations of the witch's rear that if it had had a protruding nose of any kind it would have been touching the outward contours of her rear end. With such a close examination, the theories of the black dress and the body underneath continued. The gown was stretching over corset lacings in the back that cinched the woman from a point between her shoulder blades all the way down to her ankles. Seemingly hundreds of black buttons from the nape of her neck formed a series down her back and to the ground closing the outermost layer. The scarecrow wondered how long it took the woman to don the outfit in the mornings. The long sleeves and all the buttons must have required some assistance.

There was pause as the witch handled some more of the uneven ground before her. She made a little detour around a rock providing the lurching scarecrow with another temptation to brush against her body again. When the witch made a sideways glance, the attempt to cop a feel was quickly retracted with a fain of innocence.

"We're almost there," she said pointing to the old manor, showing clearer now through the lifting fog.

As they approached, a back door left open behind the house became visible. Across from the door, a carriage house stood that had been renovated into a garage during the 1920's. The scarecrow wondered how it knew that, but then its mind focused on the wild wind slamming the back door violently against the mansion's outside stonewall. More wind whistled through a broken-down greenhouse, missing all its glass panes that had been shattered to pieces by visiting vandals over many decades. The witch ordered the scarecrow to force the rusty greenhouse door open.

With a caveman brash hit of the scarecrow's forearm, they entered.

The witch's heels clicked on the cement floor. She took center stage and posed with a long wand in her right hand like an orchestra's conductor. Watching from behind, the scarecrow was confused to see that somehow, despite the tight dress with no place to hide anything, she had somehow gotten hold of a wand. Where had she hidden it?

The scarecrow studied her more carefully as she performed a series of wide sweeping motions with her arms. Glowing energy built around her and then magically all the scattered glass chards were sucked back into their iron cast frames perfectly restoring the structure. Electric lights flickered on. Cold air turned warm. Dried plants came to life. A lush green garden formed around them.

The witch turned to the scarecrow, pushed her wand down her ample cleavage, and gave a gentle caress to her obedient creature's face. She carefully pulled off its straw hat, tugged off its potato sack and swatted to the floor layers of decaying hay underneath encouraging the scarecrow to help. They both scraped at layers of hay discarding much of it to the floor. As the rotted twigs fell, the scarecrow's seven foot height began to descend to a more normal height.

"You can actually talk now," said the witch.

Straws of hay kept falling. Clumps and leaves piled around their feet. The once large head of straw came apart in layers revealing a beautiful brunette woman's face. She was twenty-something and looked a little confused.

The witch smiled: her first indication of any kindness. "Don't worry. It'll comeback before you know it."

"Am I - am I done? Is my contract over?" said the girl as her human hands with long perfectly manicured nails took shape from the crumbling rotting hay. Her flannel shirt ripped apart as her tall slender form of perfect femininity pushed from the hay that had stuffed the overalls. She ran her fingers through her long dark hair shaking out the last loose straws.

The witch let the naked servant adjust to human life again, but just for a minute. "All Hallows' Eve is coming-up quickly and you are going to close out your contract by helping me."

A thick fog bank rushed across the lawn engulfing the greenhouse. The witch pursed her lips thinking about or maybe worrying about something. The naked girl wondered if she should worry too, or was it just contemplation? Her memory of the witch's cruel punishments started to comeback. The girl somehow knew to give-up on guessing what was next. She remembered never being able to predict it before. Instead she enjoyed the feeling of being untied, re-animated and allowed to move again. Years had flown by as her straw body sat immobile in the garden. Now she had form and muscles and movement.

"I'll have to hurry," the witch said. She took in one hand the scarecrow's potato sack from a bench of plants behind her while she plunged the fingers of her other hand between her plump breasts to extract her wand. She waved the magical twig over the potato sack, suddenly giving the bag some bulk and weight from items magically created inside. From the sack, she pulled out some clothes and a pair of high heels. "Put these on. I have to greet a visitor."

"Lederhosen? Suspenders. Shit, I don't have to fake a German accent do I?"

"No silly. Besides, that's not German. That's a Pinocchio costume. He, in fact, was Italian."

"Great. I mean: gracie."

The witch began to leave.

"Uh, wait," the frightened brunette said, "I mean pardon me Mistress Wicky - I remember your name now. You said 'he.' Putting this on isn't going to turn me into a guy is it?"

"Didn't you see the heels? You're going to spend the week as Pinocchia, not Pinocchio. And just call me Wicky. I feel like we've known each other, well, since forever."

Maybe forever was true. The confused girl wasn't certain.

The witch left the greenhouse and entered the Victorian manor through the back kitchen door. As she traversed an adjacent butler's pantry, lined with many built-in cabinets and drawers, she found and picked-up a black cat taking a nap. "Snuggles. Bad girl. We have guests. Now Move."

The black cat jumped free of the witch's arms, landed silently on the floor, and ran through the great hall to the foyer. As it approached the front door it began to transform into a glossy latex covered woman with a dangling long latex tail swinging wildly around her shiny legs from the momentum of her wide swaying hips. Except for her human eyes peering through a rigid cat mask that covered the top half of her face, she was coated in black liquid looking latex from her hooded head to her covered feet. No skin showed even around her eyes and her eyelids, which were painted a black matte color. Her mouth and nose were smoothed over and sealed shut leaving her mute. Two pointy ears projected from her smooth head completing the cat woman look. The sexy animated nature of her dark silhouette moving through the house made it clear that she had speed and boundless energy. When she grabbed the front door knob with a latex covered hand, she looked back at her mistress for permission. The witch nodded and the cat woman opened the seven-foot-wide bank-vault-thick oak door letting volumes of tulle fog rush in past her black mercury coated legs.

The stormy weather from a minute ago was now a silent fog with no visibility beyond the front porch. Snuggles stayed at the door searching for any movement. The silence broke with a faint rustling noise emitting from the fog. The noise increased becoming more of a fast collection of slapping sounds like several sheets of paper stuck into a fan. The cat woman angled her head continuing to stare into the blinding fog.

"Get away from the door, you silly cat," Wicky yelled. "Let them in."

A coffin hovering above the ground broke the fog. Snuggles jump back landing on her rear. She paddled back sliding her rubber suit across the carpet as six large bats carried a hovering pine box, their tiny feet grasping primitive rope handles. They helicoptered the casket through the wide doorway into the great hall. The cat girl flipped over onto all fours and scampered off. As she leaped across the wood floor jumping into the dining room, her body transformed into a running feline form.

The team of bats madly flapped harder as they gently set the coffin down on the oriental carpet of the great hall. Within seconds the bats grew in size transforming into men suited and hooded in latex. Short capes hung from their shoulders. Their faces were smoothed over with the glossy hoods leaving them unable to see or speak. They kneeled with their heads facing down pointing their triangular ears towards the witch. The front two remained motionless as the two furthest back stood to lift the box to an angle letting the middle two to undo a large chain.

"Well, well," said the witch, "I wasn't expecting anyone so soon."

The coffin lid creaked open, revealing a sexy French Maid with layers of short flouncy white petticoats under a black silk short dress that radiated out from her cinched waist. The corseted costume with its black long sleeves and silly tiny white apron squeezed together a double D-cup cleavage and revealed most of her mesh nylon covered legs. She stepped out of her delivery package and curtsied. "Bonjour, I return. No?" she said in a fake accent only cast in porno movies.

"Oh my, it's you Francette. I forgot this was your last trip here."

"Oui oui. I, as you say, am done. No?"

"Yes of course. Everyone seems to be wrapping up this year. You'll just help me with the party this week. Then poof. That will be all."

The French Maid's anxious breathing caused her breasts to rise and fall quickly as she stood there holding back a pending question. She was nervous. One week and then, as the witch said, "poof." She didn't know if she liked that verb when it came to witches. The coffin lid slammed shut behind her sparking a short jump from her to a wall near the grand hallway's stairs. The latex batmen transformed back to vampire bats. The slapping wings sounded off like machines. The bats began hovering, taking the coffin off the floor. Turing in place, the flying pallbearers built up momentum, suddenly jetting forward, taking the pine box out into the fog.

"Come with me child," said the witch lifting her hobble skirt just a bit to attempt ascending one step of the grand staircase - an action that did not look possible. "Normally, I have staff to help me." She grabbed the hand railing and gave a quick jump up to the first step. She repeated the action for the second and third steps.

Francette looked at this struggle and then the dozens and dozens of steps that curved up around to a second floor and then around again up to a third floor. This was going to take time. "Should I, do the escort of you et the stairs? No?"

The witch stopped at the fourth step.

Francette quickly glanced back to the floor. She had improperly shown that even her, a maid in a stereotypical fetish outfit, thought the witch's hobble skirt was a bit much. Hopefully she had not been too forward. The fact that the witch was taking a closer look at her quickened her heart rate.

"Hm," said the witch. "I see your master has been sucking on you a bit harshly."

Francette looked-up to see her mistress pointing back. Just above the maid's black choker, locked around her delicate neck, two deep puncture marked porcelain skin. It was embarrassing. She instinctively placed her hand over the bite marks to hide them from her mistress. "Oui. I taste the: 'so good.' My master said to say 'merci beaucoup' for the monthly herbs you feed to - the - me. No? They so, so, bonne-bonne."

"My customers love it. I know."

"He ahn fack this morning ravish the me. No?" Instead of continuing to touch the marks on her neck, she rubbed her rear pushing her flouncy skirts up in the back and showing some of her garter belts from behind. It was after all, the part that hurt more.

The witch raised her eyebrows at this clearly wishing to change the topic. "Very well then. My customers do love the herbs I feed you girls. Come-up stairs and we'll get the new staff up and working."

"Oui, mistress. You said 'new,' Mistress?"

"Call me Wicky while you stay here to finish out your contract."

Wind pushed the open front door wide. It swung open against the wall with a bang that forced the maid to jump again. Wicky flashed a look of anger at the door and then gathered herself. Such people who hid their anger left Francette feeling unsettled. She liked consistent personalities and not people who could fly off the handle instantly for the smallest things. The witch obviously hated when details were missed.

"Snuggles!" the witch yelled. "The door. Stop napping."

The latex cat woman ran in from another room, slid her latex feet across the floor and then slowed to a stop near the banging door. She began the chore of pulling the massive door enough to overcome its momentum, but the sound of more bat wings approaching from outside became a greater issue to consider. She stopped and listened.