The Challenge © 1998 Paz73
based on the Picture named mohr0133.jpg

When I first met Erika, she didn't impress me that much. She had very
short, cropped hair, and blended in with everyone else fashion wise. You
see, I am a sweater fetishist...turtlenecks, mohair, angora, wool,
cableknit, you name it. In the three months we shared this fall class, I
never once saw Erika wear one.

But she liked me. A LOT. She followed me around after class, and we had
lunch, and we got to know each other as friends. I grew to be rather fond
of her, but could tell that she was obsessed with me. I, however, didn't
share this obsession. One day, she asked me why.

"Erika," I said slowly and carefully, "tell me something...how much to you
care for me?"

She began to go on and on about how she didn't think she could go on
without me in her life. I never heard this kind of devotion from someone
and though it seemed proper to reciprocate the feeling, I decided to
conduct an experiment...I would test this creature. I would see if it was
possible to transform someone completely out of my tastes into someone I
would obsess over as much as they did me.

"Would you...be prepared to do something for me?" I asked coyly.

"Anything!" she said with a beaming smile of joy.

"For nine months we will meet anonymously," I began, "In that time I will
monitor you as you grow your hair long, and dress in only turtlenecks and
sweaters, as this is my personal fetish. I am not asking you to understand,
but I want to fall in love with you first from afar, as a voyeur of a
beautiful woman dressed to be unaccessible to all men, then as your one and
only, the one who conquered you!"

"We won't speak or talk in all that time? I shall go MAD!"

"But if you succeed, I shall be yours for life!"

She smiled, grabbed my hand and said, "Then you shall have it!"

The next day, I looked over to see Erika dressed in a white turtleneck
pulled up high to her chin, and a thick, cableknit pullover of undyed wool.
We exchanged approving glances. there was to be no more than that.

I kept watching through the winter. It wasn't much of a challenge for Erika
to dress in my fetish preference style since it was freezing most of the
time. Some days, she wore two and three turtlenecks just to show me how
serious she was. But the true test of her obedience would come later.

Then, by odd fate, I was asked to travel for three months as part of one of
my foreign studies classes to South America. I went without saying goodbye
to Erika, and returned wondering if she had continued her mission.

For two weeks I couldn't locate her. Her class ended, and summer session
was in. Everyday I would go to the university and search, but she was not
to be found.

Then one particularly hot day, I stopped in the park and laid down in the
cool grass with a tall cool drink. I closed my eyes for but a moment when I
heard Erika's voice over me saying, "Wake up, my master..."

There she was, in this oppressive heat, wearing a white cotton turtleneck
pulled tight around her neck up to her chin, and a heavy, blue mohair
cardigan. Her hair had grown out past her shoulders to almost twice the
length I remembered before leaving for South America.

I could see she wasn't suffering. She pulled the warm fuzzy material of the
sweater close to her chest and said, "Without you near, these collars
caress my neck, these sleeves hold my arms, and this heat...oh this
glorious HEAT! It feels like...like"

"Love" I said.

And I reached up and kissed her. She never wore anything else but
turtlenecks layered several times over again. She never cut her hair again,
and it grew long and thick.

I was hers for life!