Ms. Sugar (Work Thread for Calabus)

This was nerve wracking. His boss, Mr. Catskin? Yeah so like he wanted to Calabus to come into the office to meet a client face-to-face. He said there was no other way. Said that this client was old school, so no teleconference or online chats would do it. He had to come in and sit down in person with the client. If he refused to do it, they’d lose a client and Mr. Catskin would probably hang him in the end. Did his boss ever threaten him like this? No, no, no. The man was quite understanding of his conditions and had done everything in his power to make sure business flowed well between himself, his clients, and Calabus. However, even the smoothest of tracks had its bumps here and there and this happened to be one of them.

Standing before the mirror in his bathroom, Calabus did his best to get his unruly hair under control as he redid the blasted tie he wore for the umteenth time. Everything had to be perfect, so he could make the best impression and..and he needed not to feel like throwing up and crying right about now. Oh God. Why? Why was he like this? He would twist the bottom half of the tie in his hand nervously as he fought with the side of him that was telling him to stay home and not go. No. He couldn’t do that. He had to do this. Needed to. Right.

Despite the miserable look on his face, he would steady himself as best as he could before stepping out of the bathroom and moving about to add the finishing touches to his outfit. Once done, he would take a few deep breaths before grabbing his strange glasses and placing them on his face. Looking over at Mochi, he’d gesture quietly for her to come along to which the strange creature easily did as she got up and stretched her wings. Being as prepared as he was going to be, Calabus would leave his home and head to the office.

30 minutes later he was sitting in a large nicely decorated room with Mr. Catskin sitting on one end of the sofa dressed in his usual nice crisp black suit and smoking a cigarette in a relaxed fashion and across a table full of snacks and tea seated in a large cushioned chair was a childlike figure overly dressed in a ruffled dress of pink and white, white stockings and pink shoes. Her face was chocolate and decorated with pink dots under her eyes and pink lipstick on her pouty lips. She wore large gold hoops in her ears and her hair was pinned up in an odd display of dark red curls. This person was chubby and cute, but far from a child if those deep green orbs were anything to go by.

Sitting comfortably in her chair, with a tea cup in hand and a large body guard standing behind her chair, she would noisily slurp her tea as her eyes remained firmly locked on Calabus who sat on the other end of the sofa with his back straight and his hands resting against his knees. He kept his glassed on and Mochi stayed right next to him leaning against his legs to keep him more or less calm by letting him know she was there. However, the more the time ticked on and the girl...no the client looked at him, the more and more nervous he became. However, before he could begin tapping his foot with said nerves, the client would sigh as she held her cup and saucer to the side as her bodyguard moved easily enough to take it.

Once that was done she would slide herself out of the chair landing on the floor with a light jingle before she waddle to the table and looked Calabus up and down before parting her lips to speak to him.

“So you’re an great artist huh?” she would ask getting a stiff nod back from Calabus. She would give a light “hmph” at this as she pursed her lips. “Well do you talk?” she would demand as she placed her hands on her hips.

“Y-Yes,” Calabus would managed to force out of his dry throat.

“Not yes. Yes ma’am. Say it!” the client would snap causing Calabus to flinch slightly.

“Y-yes m-ma’am. Sorry,” Calabus would respond back unintentionally trembling a bit due to tension. The woman would narrow his eyes at him watching him for a bit and then letting out another hmph, she would turn her back on him and waddle towards the back of the room. As she did, she would speak.

“Well. Mr. Great Artist. I have a very important task that needs to be done. I have a function I must attend and I want the most unique and most beautiful dress tailored only to fit me. I want to make the men go ‘woo’ and the girls turn black and blue with envy. I’ve heard you can do work like this, but your presentation is unimpressive.”

Calabus would flinch a bit at this one as his fists balled up on his legs. He didn’t like where this was going, but sadly was used to this sort of treatment. It typically happened when faced-to-face. Once clients saw him and the way he behaved, they were out the door. He figured this one too would do the same. He was just waiting for the good-bye to happen.

“However, I see I’ve hit a nerve with my words so maybe you have potential. So then, what do you need outside of the design I have to make this dress perfectly for me?”

What? Calabus would blink before he looked over at the childlike woman who was looking at him with a demanding expression wanting his answer. It would take a bit for him to process it all, but eventually he did and placed his mind in the state of an artist dealing with a model versus a client. Viewing the matter like this helped him gather himself a bit.

“I...uh...I would need take some measurements if you don’t mind, ma’am,” he would begin as he watched her. She would raise an eyebrow at this.

“Oh and do you expect me to stripe for this?” she would ask.

“It would give me a more accurate reading,” he would respond honestly.

“Hmph. Well then grab whatever tools are needed and come me,” she would say as she waddled off to a side room. Getting to his feet Calabus would reach for the bag he had with him taking it with him to the room the woman was in. It would take a while and a little bit of fighting with all the cloth on the woman to get what was needed and when he was done, he tried to leave...only to find the woman couldn’t actually dress herself. So he had to pause and help her with that making measurements take over 30 minutes versus the few it should’ve taken.

With that out of the way, the demanding woman would give her design sketches over to him and after flipping through them, Calabus would frown as he looked at the scribbles kind of seeing what she wanted, but wanting to be absolutely sure he requested her time for questions which she complied with easily enough.

Kneeling by her chair, he would go over the sketches with her asking question about lengths, materials, and other questions he needed to get this dress done. By the end of the two hour talk, Calabus had redrawn the sketch at least 50 times before the woman was pleased.

With a goal in mind and a time limit of two weeks to get it done, Calabus left the office with Mochi feeling pretty focused. While he was out and about he got the things he needed before heading home.

Once back at home, Mochi went outside to play in the gardens while Calabus took the moment to relax his sore muscles from being so tense earlier. Once he had his relaxation session, he would look back over the sketch of the dress plotting just how to tackle this small yet complicated dress. Well he suppose the first step was to see if any of his models could help him.

Going to the back part of his house, he would look at the various size models he used for clothing finding the ones in the female section too big and the child ones almost too small; however, he found if he fiddled around with the pieces on the child model he got a model that was more or less the same height as the woman he was working for, but being a perfectionist he reviewed the measurements and compared them. Once he was sure they were spot on, he locked the pieces of the model together before leaving it be as he grabbed the bags of materials and began to sort them out into neat piles.

With the materials sorted, he’d gather his tools and once he was all set, he would sit down to work on the dress. He would spend the rest of his evening getting the basic form of the dress prepared, the blank model soon becoming a bust covered by cloth and pins to hold the form together. Once he had the under piece prepped, he worked on sewing and trimming the piece up until it was a smooth and flawless piece of cloth that could slip on and off the model without any issue.

Pleased with that he would set the under piece aside as he began to work on the next layer of the dress getting this one prepped before having to take a break for a bit of rest and food. Once he had recharged a bit, he would hop right back to work taking his time with the dress’s many layers to make sure each one was just right before adding them to the under piece and then on top of each other. He worked his days away like this his life becoming a mess of needles, threads, and materials as he worked on this perfect tiny dress. He was able to get most of it done three days of ahead of time, but before he dared put finishing touches on it, he requested his client to come and try it on, so he could make adjustments to it if need be.

And what do you know? A few adjustments did need to be made to make that dress fit like a glove on the woman, but he got it done and once the dress was completed he began to add the glitz and glam that was to finish it off.

With the finish product done, he was able to deliver it right on time the client seeming pleased with it; however, she refused to pay until after her event. Which was fine by him. He rather be paid by a thoroughly pleased customer than by one that paid due to just having to do it, but not being truly pleased.

He thought he would have to wait another day since the event was an all day thing; however, halfway through his day of resting he got a call from Mr. Catskin who asked him to come into the office again. From his boss’s tone he wasn’t sure if the request to come in was a good or bad thing. It was after all the same client that had ordered the dress, so the fairy was quite worried about what was up.

However, once he got to the office he found the client waiting for him with a big grin on her face and a pooch at her side, a bit confused he looked to his boss for help, but his boss simply nodded back towards the grinning lady.

Confused the fairy looked back at the woman who practically squealed with delight as she informed him that she was thrilled with his work, but more than that she wanted to know if he could do more dresses for her in the future and even some work for the pooch. A bit shocked at this, Calabus took a moment to gather himself before answering honestly. He told her he could do the dressed, but couldn’t guarantee how great his work would be for the pooch since it was new territory to him; however, the client didn’t seem to worry too much for she said she was confident whatever he made for the pooch would be lovely.

And well he couldn’t really refuse such an offer and blow off that compliment now could he? It would be extra money in his pocket and well the woman provided him some interesting challenges with her choice in designs, so after some consideration he accepted the whole package and ended up with Ms. Lucy Sugar as a client of his. The more clients that could enjoy his work the happier he was, so not a bad catch in his book.