I circled the metal and orbital crystal receptacle that encapsulated Isabel’s brains all her remaining vital organs.

All the parameters checked out and I felt a hint of regret as I activated the systems.

I watched high precision arms attach the sensor systems around the orb that contained her brain. The most beautiful of cybernetic eyes were set into what was to become her new face.

Slowly, the whole system was gently lowered into the waiting structural frame. Within moments, the molds slid over her emerging female shape and poured the Sculptskin over it.

I felt a tingling as I watched her form vanish into a rough block of material, ready to be rediscovered and sculpted …
 
 

I circled the block a few times, trying to let my instincts guide me beyond the visual and tactile … To see her "true" form and sculpt her.

I grabbed a large cutting tool and began to remove the excess material. Sculptskin was a strange, but very gratifying material to work with, soft like clay, but as alive as human flesh. With some care and work, every statue sculpted from it would seem alive, as if on the brink of movement. Yet, this statue was to be more than a mere statue. It was to be as much alive as it was to be a statue. It would be able to think and feel, but it would not be able to move. It could not even be forced to move or be posed.

Eventually I would free her after a while, give her a new shape and appearance, but for now, she was to be my living statue …

Isabel could see and hear everything around her.

She could hear the music and the murmur of people speaking, she could see the people stare up at her and she saw the awe and admiration in their eyes.

None of them suspected that this statue stared back at them, every bit as alive as they …

Isabel felt a deep, almost perverse joy in being immobile … To be reduced to little more than an object.

The clean break from being an ordinary, everyday person left her with a deep sensuous feeling that no crude artificial stimulation could ever bring her. No buzzers or systems to tickle her into orgasm … Just her own thoughts, channeled directly into her pleasure centers.

No mere "toy" could ever replace the power of her imagination …

By means of a reflection in a cleverly placed mirror, Isabel could see her new shape.

She was sitting demurely on a rock, naked and beautiful, while her angel wings were fully deployed in all their magnificent glory.

She had been sculpted in a very elegant classic style with slightly modern touches.

Ivory white all over, with long cascading hair, framing a lovely face with warm, compassionate eyes.

She had a graceful body with perfect curves and exquisite detailing.

Her left leg was almost extended, while her right was pulled up against the body, leaving the right arm to rest on it and leaving the left arm raised in a gesture of appeasement.

"The Angel of Compassion" The inscription said …

And like all Sculptskin statues, she seemed almost ready to get up and walk. Some people visibly strained to see her breathe or twitch, yet to all of them she was but a beautiful statue.

It was only when the last guest left and I was alone with Isabel, did I take time to admire her.

Knowing her intimately, I was good a reading her mind and I knew nothing would please her more than to be teased a bit.

I circled her, using a feather I had surreptitiously snatched from a woman’s hat and touched her lightly a few times on certain spots.

The Sculptskin contained special nodes that linked to her neurally upgraded brain, giving her a very sensitive sense of touch.

I continued to tickle and tease her for a few minutes, circling her.

And then I gently caressed her face. I looked into the staring eyes and played a finger on her full lips.

I circled her nose and ran my finger up her forehead, into her hair, into her neck, before climbing up her chin up to her mouth again.

I whipped out the feather and began to play it over her body, tickling all the areas of her body. Unfortunately no area of her body was substantially more sensitive than others, yet as sensitive as the tip of a breast …

After about an hour of play, I kissed her on the cheek and wished her a happy holiday …

Isabel finally heard the crate being opened and saw light again.

She was finally back in the atelier and saw her lover watching her.

The crisp, early light of morning filled her heart with joy after spending an eternity in the darkness.

For a moment still, she was the angel, beautiful and pure …

Only, for a moment, because he circled her and tore off her wings.

Digging with his hands, he tore away at her flesh, kneading and tearing. Shaping and cutting until she was little more than a rough shape, devoid of personality, devoid of identity …

To her this was as exciting as could be … And she throbbed with pleasure as she was reduced to nothingness …

She could feel him knead her, a very peculiar sensation that ten lifetimes of experiences could not put into words.

She felt being shaped again, transformed by his beautiful artist’s hands into an ancient spirit reborn into rough clay. Auguste Rodin had been an inspiration to him and Isabel wished she could have been sculpted by him, or by Michelangelo, Phidias or a thousand other great artists. She wished she could have felt their hands, trying to capture the right shape, the perfect angle the sensuous curve, the proper gaze …

I watched Isabel. I could see an emerging leg, parts of an arm and the beginnings of a beautiful face …

There was a strength in the unfinished, an esthetic clarity that appealed much more to me than a finished form.

And suddenly I realized things. We would never be together …

Although I only wished for her happiness, I felt sad when she left her old body …

Had she been born in an earlier age, she would have been very unhappy, confined to a human body he disliked so much.

Technology could rid her of a body, but it would never give her back to me. She would never speak to me directly again. She could still hear me, feel me, but I would never hear her golden laughter, see her sweet eyes and feel the soft contours of body.

Never again, would she bear a face longer than a few weeks, never again would she dance with me on a romantic night …

What good was it to be the greatest artist in the world if he could not be with the woman he loved ?

His latest piece was made with such energy and boldness, Isabel felt horny all the time.

But she had also noticed that he had a new assistant, a mature, good-looking woman with beautiful hands.

Although she did not help him with his work on Isabel, he talked to her and told her how he wanted a certain statue to be made. She took notes and watched him work.

When the woman left, he told Isabel …

Isabel wanted to scream when she heard him speak, telling her what he was about to do. She wanted to be able to move her lips and speak, to jump from her pedestal and stop him. But all she could do was listen and see his warm smile as he left her, all alone …

She felt wracking regret that she had let herself be transformed … It would have been easier to simply disguise her as a statue, so that she could be with him. She cursed a thousand times before she cried herself to sleep …

Only when she suddenly felt his hand did the last missing piece of the puzzle come together …

Only then did she realize that she had not made a mistake. As she gazed at his statue, she knew and understood. They would be together as their Sculptskin touched and their hearts became one.
 

"Lovers" the inscription simply said.