Monday mornings usually represent some level of Hell on Earth, and today was no exception. It was 6 months ago that Samantha became a permanent part of M.L.'s life. That day was perhaps the brightest in his life. Since then, he was spending long hours keeping his modeling agency afloat. The disappearance of Samantha had had devastating consequences on his business that he had not counted on. Yet, whenever he returned home, the sight of his silent, still and statuesque love comforted him. He had even found solace in the internet, where he found a small world of people with similar fetishes. The big difference was, however, that he had literally fulfilled a lifetime fantasy. He even designed a web page of his own to entertain and perhaps stimulate those faceless people he corresponded with.

When he arrived at his home, he grabbed the mail and followed his now religious practice of visiting Samantha in the 'white' room. Sometimes she was dressed in provocative clothing, sometimes she wore nothing at all. He found that he could lose himself for hours staring at such a perfectly detailed nude frozen female form, and he did just that. M.L. was suddenly jarred back to this reality by the ringing of the doorbell. He shouted that he would be right there and quickly checked his appearance. Waiting for him at the door was a special delivery package. He signed for it, thanked the delivery person and brought the package back to the white room and eagerly opened it. Inside was a letter:

Mr. M.L.:

Your recent efforts have not gone unnoticed. We cordially invite you to attend small dinner party to be held in your honor at the Club Vogue, 1314 Main Street at 10pm tonight. A limousine will arrive at your residence at 915pm to bring you to the club and drive you back again when you are ready to retire for the evening. When you arrive, please take the elevator to the third floor, room 305.

We look forward to meeting you.

Sincerely,

Mr. Sears, President of The Conglomerate

He reread the letter several times. After having fought through another Monday, perhaps he should just plunge into the unknown. He showered, dressed and waited eagerly for the limousine to arrive. Promptly at 9:15, the limo showed up. The driver ushered M.L. into the well stocked passenger cabin and drove to the club. M.L. went directly to the room indicated in the letter when he arrived at the club, after receiving assurances from the limo driver that he would, indeed drive M.L. back to his home whenever he chose to leave the club for the night.

Mr. Sears answered the door himself. He was a tall, powerful figure, which slightly intimidated M.L. The room itself was fairly large. It could hold perhaps 20 people. The room overlooked the interior of Club Vogue, which turned out to be a fairly busy dance club. "I know that you're wondering what this is all about, M.L., and you will receive your answers shortly. For the moment, let's enjoy the meal and get to know each other a little." The meal was incredibly delicious. The choicest cuts of steak, the freshest vegetables and an absolutely awesome array of side dishes. This was a meal for royalty. M.L. and Mr. Sears had a frank and honest discussion. Mr. Sears seemed to be quite well informed about M.L.'s failing agency and the mystery of the missing model that brought on the decline. He was also well informed about M.L.'s other activities outside of his agency. This troubled M.L. greatly. Then Mr. Sears changed subjects and began talking about the 'Conglomerate', "The 'Conglomerate', M.L., is an association of visual merchandisers from this region of the country. Recently, several of our member companies reported increased interest in their mannequin and related products. Most of those inquiries resulted in sales. We learned from our new customers that they had learned about us though a web page. After some digging, we found that it was your web page. With a little more effort, we learned that you created and maintain it. Once we had your name, researching and tracking you down was easy. Having learned of your recent plight, and its cause, the Conglomerate has decided to honor and reward you for increasing awareness about our organizations, which resulted in record sales for many of our members. We wish to do two things for you: steer modeling candidates your way and present you with a gift."

M.L. was stunned, "I don't know what to say. I thank you for your generosity, but frankly, I don't see how you can convince any aspiring models to sign with my agency." "We are aware of what happened to Samantha. We don't know how you happened to come upon our most closely guarded technology and transform her, but we have a plan to clear you name. Tomorrow morning, another model who looks amazingly like Samantha will walk into the local police station and clear your name. She is fully briefed on the real Samantha's life and her fingerprints have been altered to resemble Samantha's prints. By noon tomorrow, you should receive an official apology from the police and your business will slowly return to normal. We will help restore that business by referring aspiring models to you. Now, with that out of the way, let's move on to the gift we wish to present to you. As you are already aware of our technology, we'd like to show you how we utilize it." Mr. Sears produced a rather large remote control, pointed it down towards the dance floor and pressed several buttons. The glass panel that overlooked the floor retracted into the ceiling, which allowed the music to enter the room. "Let's watch the action, shall we?" Mr. Sears said. They stepped to the opening and looked down onto the dance floor. "Do you notice anything unusual, M.L.?" Indeed he did. There were no men in the club. "Those aren't just any women, M.L., each of them is an aspiring model, carefully screened and here by invitation only." Mr. Sears aimed the remote at the dance area and pressed a few more buttons. The music faded out and fog started to rise from vents in the dance floor. From the ceiling, strobe lights started flashing. "The fog rising from the floor is usually just a matter of mixing dry ice and water. This fog is much like the ordinary stuff, but we've add a few mind altering chemicals before it enters the dance area. The chemicals make the women who inhale it very susceptible to suggestion. This allows us to review and test them before inducting them into our merchandising lines. I'll demonstrate."

Mr. Sears thumbed the remote again. A new song started up, one the M.L. recognized. "Strike a pose!" came blaring through the dance floor speakers. On the dance floor, everyone froze in place. Mr. Sears thumbed the remote again. The music paused, the strobes stopped and the fog cleared from the dance area. Several people appeared on the floor, moving from person to person, removing all articles of clothing from the unmoving women. After they completed their work, Mr. Sears shocked a staring M.L. back to reality by asking him to accompany him to the dance floor. On the floor, Mr. Sears walked each of the young women, closely scrutinizing their motionless bodies. "I'm looking for imperfections in each of them.", he explained. "Before we can continue the process of inducting them into our merchandising line, we need to remove anyone who has any discoloration or distracting abnormalities like scars from the group." M.L. was beginning to understand what was happening around him. Mr. Sears asked, "Why don't you help me?" M.L. eagerly started inspecting a group of women frozen in the farthest corner of the floor. He discovered two women that had slight discoloration on parts of their bodies. He pointed them out to Mr. Sears, who snapped his fingers and motioned two of the people to remove the frozen forms from the dance floor. M.L. continued, and stopped for a few minutes to admire a particular woman. Her sultry eyes seemed to draw him to her. She was a rather tall and slender woman about 5'11 and perhaps 160 lbs. She had shoulder length red hair. She was posed with her hands behind her head and under her hair, in the act of raising her hands to toss her hair gently about. M.L. ran his hands along her torso and then continued on. The momentary delay did not go unnoticed by Mr. Sears. After each of the woman had been inspected, a total of 4 were moved from the floor. "We will deal with these four in a little bit. First, we have to complete what we've started with the remaining women. Please join me back on the third floor."

Once back in the room, they ventured back to the open window overlooking the floor. Mr. Sears again thumbed the remote. Bright lights illuminated the dance area with an almost blinding brilliance. From the dance floor vents, fog once again rose. This time, it was more dense and it had a slight red coloration to it. The fog continued to rise within the dance area. A few minutes later, M.L. could not see any of the women. The fog had taken on a dense cloud-like quality. Mr. Sears started the music again. M.L. could see swirling patches within the dense fog. He imagined the movements of the women he had inspected. The song ended and Mr. Sears thumbed the remote again. The fog was drawn out through the vents and the lights were lowered to a normal level of illumination. M.L. guessed what was going to happen next. Back on the dance floor, Mr. Sears asked him to once again inspect the women. M.L. again surveyed the same women he had inspected only a short time ago. This time, however, they appeared a little different. The coloration was the same, but... "Of course!", he thought. Their bodies have been transformed, much the same as Samantha had, but with no change in color. He hurried along and approached the sultry eyed red head. She was frozen in much the same position as she had been before. The gleam in her eyes was no longer present, having faded as a result of the transformation. He again ran his hands over her torso. It was much smoother to the touch, and cooler. Her petrified body had already cooled to room temperature. He stroked her face. He felt a grease-like substance on his fingers. He withdrew his hand and saw that her makeup had rubbed off onto it.

Mr. Sears called to M.L. to join him be the four models that had been set aside before the remaining women on the dance floor were turned into frozen visages of their former selves. "Now its time to work with these models. After my men have removed our new merchandisers from the floor, they'll place these four back onto the floor. Since they can't be used on the salesfloor, they'll be sent to a sister company in Hollywood, where they'll be used as props." M.L. frowned at this thought, "Won't they be put at risk of being destroyed in action sequences or used for special effects in such a way that someone will modify them?" "We keep tight control over what happens to them. If we even remotely suspect that harm may come to our models, we refuse to participate." This alleviated M.L.'s concerns. A few minutes later M.L. watched the remaining four ladies placed back on the dance floor. Each was surrounded on three sides by blue screen backgrounds. M.L. watched as no less than four movie cameras were placed by each of the women. "We take the liberty of filming these transformation sequences and selling the footage to Hollywood. We will again surround them with the 'fog', but it won't be as dense, as to allow the cameras to record the transformation process. Over the course of the next 10 minutes, each will be posed by the workers in protective gear and slowly transformed into uni-color mannequins or some other mineral substance. This is where the workers get to have their say. As a group, they decide what will become of each of the four remaining women." M.L. watched as a worker, donned in a contamination suit, walked through the fog like gas and approach the first woman. He straightened her stance, tilted her head so that she was looking up into the distance and finally raised her right arm so that it extended in front of her face, with her hand extended just above her head. Her left arm was bent at the elbow and her hand placed against her hip. The worker then formed a pucker on the motionless face. The worker then placed a compact in her hand and opened it so that she was looking back at herself. He then stepped back. Another worker , dressed in protective gear, opened the valve of a white cylinder, allowing the gas to escape and blend with the fog like gas. Seconds later, M.L. watched as the model's coloring darkened, becoming gray. The effect seemed to start at her chest and radiate through the rest of her body. When the gases finally dissipated, a much darkened female form stood in front of the cameras. At Mr. Sears prompt, M.L. approached her and touched the charcoal gray form. It felt like the others that were transformed ahead of her, with two differences, there was nothing resembling hair left on its body, and the coloring was, of course, different. This woman was clearly going to be on of Mr. Sears' 'visual merchandisers', but had been given this form to disguise the previous imperfections found in her. The remaining three women were erotically posed and subjected to the transforming agents. One woman was turned to glittering gold, one to ordinary stone and the other to gleaming white marble.

"What do you think about what you've seen, M.L.?" "This has been an incredible experience. I've always fantasized about various methods of solidifying my subjects, but had no idea that this occurred on a larger scale. I can't thank you enough for allowing me to see this." "Well, it's time to call it a night, we've several women to pack and ship to their new positions. Before you leave, however, I would caution you about the use of your transformation device. It almost destroyed your business and could very well have destroyed your life as well. Here, please accept this and enjoy the days to come." Mr. Sears handed M.L. a sealed envelop and then escorted M.L. to his awaiting limo. M.L. thank Mr. Sears again and the limo driver took M.L. home. En route to his house, M.L. decided to sample the bar in the limo. He switched on the overhead lights and reached over to the available drinks. With a start, he suddenly became aware that someone else was in the back of the limo with him. He looked over at the stranger and then broke into a wide smile. Staring across at him were a very familiar pair of sultry eyes and a face with smeared makeup. A note pinned to the mannequinized fantasy indicated that he should read the letter given to him by Mr. Sears. M.L. tore open the envelop. Inside was a short note:

James,

Please accept this gift from the associate members of the Conglomerate. Her name is, or rather was, whichever is up to you, Sabrina. May Samantha, Sabrina and yourself find happiness together. Should you ever need our help, please contact Me at Club Vogue.

Sincerely,

Mr. Sears.

That night, or rather, early that morning, M.L. introduced Samantha to a new friend. "It's going to be damn near impossible to leave the white room again.", M.L. thought, "I think that I can cope with it."