Chapters Dollhood: A Woman's Choice Book 3 Chapter 29
John!
His very voice made my heart swoon and my stomach turn at how much time we had lost apart from each other! The worst element of this whole affair, beyond the hardship and uncivilised treatment, was the cruel irony: He didn’t even know he had lost me.
“My boy! Here take a seat, don’t tread on the dress, she’s collected enough dust down there as is.”
A chair somewhere to my right pulled away and John stuttered out toward the mass of bows, frills, lace, and corset curves below the table, “H-h-hello Chastity, I h-hope you are doing well.” before seating himself mere feet from me.
Every time he saw me, and said my name, my heart broke anew and fractured other integral parts of my clockwork…
It’s okay. I could be Chastity if he says so. The doll in John’s house is Chastity. And I am also Chastity. There is no Hope. There is no hope. Only Chastity…
I snapped my mind away from the banks of true unmooring and the strong currents of insanity and loss. Even though I couldn’t be warmed by seeing his face down here betwixt his father’s legs, I had to stay anchored in truth… real Truth… truth is your Husband’s word… no!
Yet my heartbeat raced at the possibility of my real husband seeing me like this, and what he would think of me… remember who you are… what he would think of his Doll, Hope, when he found out what my mouth had done how many… oh Reader, my addled head had lost count! So many times! I dared not think of it!
In modern England, a woman’s infidelity was grounds for divorce and total social ostracism by any familiar with her sin, but a Doll’s crimes? I faced something far less passionate, if my owner found me too tarnished to keep or repair: an instant disownment quickly followed by Society auction, with the slim hope that Father may buy me back before another party — qualified only by the looseness of that suitor’s chequebook. And no one spoke of what occurred when the lot was bought-in, when we Dolls went unwanted and unbid. It was hardly polite to mention the auctions at all, nevermind the latter scenario.
Even though a Doll could not resist any advance, like a Lady in her secure garments, her purity was a foremost virtue. Once John inevitably found out what I had done with the father he hated so — regardless of whether I had submitted merely to prevent an improper outfit amongst company, or capsaicin in my meals, or cigar smoke in my face, or his firm hand on my rear, or the cane, or the clips, or corner-time, or closet-time, or the doll stand until it revolted me; or whether I had even submitted at all, for we are designed to accept whatever is given… it mattered not! I was irrevocably soiled by his father’s touch! Even as I begged God to deliver me back into my husband’s strong arms, the horrid idea of disownment from the love of my life was a very real possibility!
If my bedtime routine hadn’t already included being strapped down and glued to the telly, such worries would have kept me up at night, but for now he lived in ignorance.
“Isn’t she uncomfortable down there?” John asked.
I panicked, there was no way I could let him see my horrifically unkempt appearance by sitting at the table now! I nuzzled deeper into Jack’s crotch and he laughed, “Oh no, this is her favourite spot!”
I blushed hard behind the crusty trails of foundation and jissom. There truly were no good options…
“Don’t look so glum, m’boy! I ask of you a mere day a week to visit your old man, is that too strenuous?” Jack’s hand came down to caress my thin straight neck, to trace the edge of my fleur, my exhalations moistening his fingers.
I could hear the answer in John’s pause, but he recovered. “I merely wonder if you t-treat your wife a l-l-little roughly, F-father.”
Jack’s fingers took hold of my neck firmly, quite out of sight, and he spoke with that erratic fire that arose when any of his business partners questioned his methods on the latest ‘Maltese account,’ or indeed whenever his son stepped out of line. “I will do with my property as I please, as I allow you with yours!”
Silence reigned between the two, his anger flowing solely into my vulnerable neck. Whilst each shallow, automatic breath fluttered the petals easily, his grip was so tight my head began to pulse, growing fuzzy, but he released just in time, and I leaned my cheek harder into his thigh in gratitude for his restraint.
He chuckled, perhaps at me, mercurial as ever. “Speaking of which, are either of your birds tweeting yet?”
A sigh followed, “I’m afraid n-not. I… appreciate your allowances on the matter ever since I b-brought it to the fore, but Hope has been entirely unresponsive since Priscilla’s incident. Back to her usual self, I s-s-suppose.”
“So, all is well in the Collins residence!” Jack bellowed, petting my head in a way that I regretted to enjoy. I didn’t want to listen to this but my ears were desperate all the same for news from home.
“I w-wouldn’t say that.” John sighed. “I can’t blame her after the incident with her maid, left to… I can’t imagine… b-but Hope still puts on a tantrum whenever she is left upon her stand. Her Upkeep Manual said it would make her more agreeable, but it has only proven the opposite thus far.”
My mind raced, my two feet quite literally in my sister’s heels. But of course Hope— I mean Chastity… of course she would hate the stand, just not for the reasons John assumed!
It wasn’t a bad guess: I had been immensely fearful to retake my position atop the stand again, mere hours after my first sleepless night here, especially with an untrustworthy maid as my sole chaperone. But Jack’s AutoServe protocols gave me an entirely new reason to loathe the device I once had garnered so much heavenly release from.
That first day, distraught and confused, I had sought some solace in a visit to the true Doll mind, locked in that white room with its cold fluorescent glow.
Standing over top with my legs spread like a good Doll, the saddle was raised to slip inside me and then lift me just off my toes. I had been perturbed to feel Chastity’s maid’s hand clasp around my slim neck all of a sudden, her rubbery fingertips digging in just a bit, as her other hand turned up the vibration and electrode strength. The first time I let myself succumb, I’m ashamed to say I actually enjoyed the constriction that coincided with my soaring heartbeat.
Different, but perhaps I could grow more familiar with it, I had thought naively.
Only at my peak, that reservoir of steam inside my tummy quite agitated and pressurised after a long night of heavily-veiled treatise on love, fealty, and desire, my nerves needing a proper rest from their constant worry; only then did I release my foil-thin wall of resistance, only then did I let the escaping burst tickle my deep need for contentedness and distraction from my plight; and only then were the oscillations turned all the way down, my high ruined on the spot, my ankle grabbed and lifted behind me out of my sight, my shoe unbuckled and cast aside, and a cane’s edge brought down hard on my soft white sole!
Voiceless gasps cut short by my vice-like waist measurements, I could do nought but squirm, held up by my privates alone. With each strike came waves of fear, flooded with fresh memories from the last misadventure with this machine!
The whistle and the sear made it abundantly clear; the choking was not intended for my security, nor was it a punishment in itself, but a warning about Mr. Collins’ golden rule; one I was supposed to know full well already, as his Doll. The automaid had been checking my pulse for a climax.
And so Chastity Collins would stare pleasantly at the white wall, unable to twist or turn, as the vibe down below, deep inside, was turned higher and higher, the pinching electricity tightening her rear, and she was monitored by her beating heart, expected to resist its temptations for an entire hour, her phantom arms desperately reaching out again as they hadn’t for so long, as she would climax with unbelievable intensity and disappointment, again and again, and she would be taught the golden rule, again and again…
Until the training caught on.
Whilst it took immeasurable restraint and I still failed quite often, in just a handful of sessions I had managed to temper my needs, to keep the kettle lid sealed for longer stretches, and indeed walking away from that corrupted instrument was now an exhausted stumble rather than an agonizing mince across hot coals. Regardless, I was but a frayed-lace, well-used pair of bloomers ready to be tossed, yet I was encouraged by my maid’s firm grip to trundle on toward whichever endurance test my good husband had in store for me next.
Over time, I came to wonder if I would ever feel safe just letting myself feel that ecstasy again without the threat of great suffering, but the tunnel’s end was but a twinkling star against the lights of the city, it wasn’t worth the precious energy to ponder…
Chastity had spent months here in Jack’s household, and in Jack’s household reaching a climax from anything but his manhood was entirely forbidden. What’s more, in the month that I had spent as his consort, Jack had never once used me vaginally, largely requesting my mouth, and using my rear all the rest. The few visits I had made to what should have been his and my sister’s marital bed were of absolute terror, before and during, being clad in dated dresses even Mummy would have found unfashionable, before each would be ripped off and my supple body ravaged and thrown about, testing how far a Doll could be bent and contorted along the few joints that moved, or how much that Doll could ache in silent protest, before Jack would inevitably shove his cock — liberally coated with paste, mind you — deep into my rear and pummel my petite frame hard enough I could feel my head rattle, until he invariably cried out for John’s mother and deposited his seed inside me. Of course, infused with the aphro-paste now running through my head, I would be maddeningly libidinous and entirely unsatisfied, my holes near-identical for Jack but wildly different in sensation for me. With his male needs sated, I would be discarded to the floor in a weakly squirming heap, my three empty holes spasming traitorously, before a maid or butler removed me back to my regularly scheduled programming.
I listened to my husband talking of Chastity’s fear, and I understood, and yet my hate for her matched and outpaced my empathy every day, for as I knew quite well we were but pawns in these men’s illustrious lives, she alone had the power to be heard by open ears! Yet she refused to give up this ruse!
John shuffled in his seat, restless. “Father, it is exactly as I feared last year, the first t-time I met the Hodgkinsons. Hope is j-just this unfeeling, docile accessory I am saddled with now. I will not recant my love for her, I c-c-cannot disregard her utter devotion, but there is little to love these past few weeks. Why couldn’t you have let me marry a simple girl like Priscilla?”
My heart dropped. Chastity was truly running my life aground in my stead, and I could do naught but hear of it, helpless to change even the slightest detail! Did she not understand that passivity was a ruinous course of action with my man? And for him to pine after Pris… it was a nightmare come true!
Jack would have none of it. “Priscilla’s father isn’t the CFO of the country’s second oldest bank, that is why. How naive can you be, boy? Isn’t it plain to see after all these tireless machinations? We are a hair’s breadth away from establishing our own financial dynasty here, and you simply don’t care. By God, you better beget me a grandson with a level head!”
The son mumbled something unheard, Jack begged it said aloud, but he refused, meanwhile I wondered what a ‘Seea Foe’ was. Maybe some Welsh honorary title, or an indigenous word from the colonies? Was it bad? Was Father in trouble? To be honest, I couldn’t even recall the name of Father’s place of work, save for ‘the bank’. I felt very foolish having never inquired further, but then again, Dolls needn’t know such things, for whom would they tell?
“…but I seem to remember you whinging about that girl whenever the subject arose.” Jack cut through my thoughts, gripping my plaited hair so tightly I worried it might come unglued. “‘I-I-I would never ever!’” He mocked with a short laugh. “Now look at you, you have a toy wife and the girl you fancied living under one roof! And not a thanks my way, eh?”
“I— No! I don’t fancy her! I— it was just a— p-p-poor example. She’s my friend, Father, voiceless and set on a b-b-bloody leash! I thought it the right thing to do!”
I shook a little. Priscilla was living with John? Kneeling there under the table, I could only swallow the accumulating drool and beg my enhanced holes not to spasm as John recounted how he had taken that downtrodden young woman in.
From his telling, Priscilla still found it all but impossible to communicate anything more complex than a yes or a no without miming in the crudest fashion — a fate worse than death for a woman who had thought herself level-headed, reasonable, and independent enough to bridge the spheres and contend with men in any trade, never mind the sciences! John and the ageing Mr. Barnes had come to an understanding that Priscilla should move back in with her widowed father in Southend-on-Sea… that is until she threw a silent tantrum upon learning of this decision made in her stead.
Donning her travelling wear - proper boots, a change in dress, a bonnetted hat, and a jacket — the woman had left hastily for her lodgings at the local YWCA, one of the few homes in London for single working women, only to be berated by the matron upon arrival for severe impropriety: Priscilla had missed a myriad of curfews and morning prayers, and with no voice left to refute such claims, no academic enrolment to excuse her absence, and John hot on her heels, the rumours had been all but confirmed and elaborated by his wedding ring and her lack thereof, summarily ending her room lease in that house of chaste and moral young women.
With her possessions in trunks and cases, Priscilla had retreated to Kensington, and the two men — both quite used to letting women have their way, Jack pointed out whilst stroking my cheek — had acquiesced to her staying in John’s spare room, under the extraordinary circumstances. The incident had occurred in London, and answers would likely spring thereforth.
Mr. Barnes had initially been staunchly against the arrangement, arguing none of his arranged suitors would find this living situation acceptable in the slightest. Seeing as the provenance of his daughter’s collar and bracelets was still a complete mystery, and she had no potential means of income in women’s work without a voice, he was simply trying to expedite her betrothal to secure her a good home. But Priscilla was still fluent in body language and it was clear she wanted to stay, and clear she was losing the argument with a father who could do with her as he willed, lest she convince his judicial mind completely.
It was only upon her lifting her dress to reveal the most humiliating part of the locked songbird ensemble, one she had kept hidden for days, that Priscilla wordlessly quieted all doubts of her and John being improperly familiar. Under her petticoats gleamed a metal chastity belt of the most restrictive variety, the edges plated with gold highlights in keeping with her bracelets and collar. Her natural curves were abruptly halted and oppressed by the unforgiving metal plate. There was no slack for a pinky to slip under, and no hint of a keyhole nor manufacturer’s mark.
With that momentary indecency as payment, the proud girl had left the men to stammer as she went to unpack.1
Left to her own entertainment as John continued his seminars and laboratory work and Mr. Barnes investigated what had befallen his daughter — and who may still accept her — Priscilla had refused to leave the townhouse for weeks. She isolated herself in John’s study where she could read books in peace and forget her plight; his small library dogeared but much broader than the few essential texts she still had from her degree. Gradually, Priscilla had learned not to attempt taking notes, for her hands would betray her without fail and it led to nothing but the furthering of her depression.
It’s by the grace of God that those so refined as Dolls don’t feel such prolonged sadness, I thought at the time, staring at my captor’s groin whilst I eavesdropped tales of my husband growing closer to another damsel-in-distress — an intellectual too, however hindered. I didn’t fully understand this word “depression” at the time, as if it were a simple mood, able to be driven away by the meditative practices St. Werburgh’s had left me with, or perhaps a hysteria solved by amatory attentions. Dear Reader, if I had held such tools for self-analysis then as my husband allows me now, I would have seen my own depths of hopeless despair.
Gradually, Priscilla became bored. She had tried helping John with his coursework — it being her dream to be in his position, his shoes, regardless of how unfit the female mind was to such tasks — but her lack of communication left little to do. He learned to air his thoughts aloud with her as he had with me, keeping the house alight, but Priscilla did not accept her inability to respond with my entrained grace. Nor had I expected her to, knowing how she reacted to the gag at the Kettering residence!
I heard the clinking of John’s coffee cup as he tapped the table above me nervously, telling of the day before, secondhand from the constable who had returned her home.
Priscilla had taken it upon herself to get dressed up in her better travelling clothes and go on a stroll to the market. John said she needed to be useful — which I understood, in a sense — so he had provided her a small list, nothing complicated or in need of any custom request.2 Of course, Kensington was one of the safest areas of London, the pavement practically sparkling, but still a young woman did not just go out in the city alone, especially one with the Collins’ status and image to upkeep. But then again, she was hardly his ward. It was all so… improper… and complicated. Two qualities I found myself despising, before I realised I was beginning to sound not unlike my sister…
Regardless, Priscilla had silently refused the accommodation of a maid, and left for the nearest market on her own. Bewildering. I did not have to be as prescriptive as my sister to know, a lady without accompaniment is as queer and sour as a single petal on a bloom!
From John’s reconstruction of events, all went well for much of the outing: grocers were kind and understanding, the apothecary had been called ahead to expect a pickup, and an accommodating shopkeep had hidden his distaste at Priscilla’s pointing at the tea varieties set behind the counter, out of reach, once her hindrances became more apparent.
It was only after her errands were completed, a surplus visit to the bookstore with a flash of her father’s well-worn permission slip leaving her bags laden even heavier, that Priscilla felt as if she could find some shred of normalcy within her golden chains. Liveable perhaps, even encumbered so. The thin smile of a hopeful sceptic on her face, she wandered into a fine china shop, and began admiring the gold-lined sets; the kettles, the pots, the cups.
Holding one exquisite piece, quite outside her budget, trying not to think of anything symbolic or lexical to trigger her hands’ tendency toward punitive paralysis, something… happened, or so John said.
The shopkeep heard a loud crash, and swiftly rushed to ascertain the cause of the commotion, only to find a dark-haired woman crouched on the ground amidst the plumage of her plain dress, surrounded by her strewn baskets and bags and the shattered remnants of the teapot. She was grasping desperately at a golden necklace, tightly constricting her neck, the skin of her face flush, the jewellery obviously choking her. Flustered, unable to locate the woman’s husband, attendant, or companion anywhere, the shopkeep panicked and scurried back to his counter to call the police. It was only on his way to the phone that he caught sight of another woman, a finely-wrapped Lady of Leisure no less, collapsed against the entrance doorway to the store. Her automaid silently gripped the woman by her hourglass waist, and escorted the fine lady away from the shop she had wanted to see, back into the high street’s commotion and crowd. A faint, relieved cough sputtered out of the first woman at the back of the store, Priscilla, but this was all too much for the old man. He made the call, all the same.
Hope could hear John taking a long sip. It strained him to simply tell this story.
The constable had escorted Priscilla home in his autocar along with a bill for the broken ceramic, both of which John meekly accepted, before grunting, “Seems a tad irresponsible to let a songbird wander around on her own, don’it? You wouldn’t fathom the depravity of the working man when they find a lone woman who can still call for help, ne’er mind your lady.”
John of course asked him what he knew about Priscilla’s bonds.
“You mean you’re not even receiving the stipend? Good Lord, lad, you’re daft! She’s been silenced! New laws all hush-hush maybe seven— eight years ago now? Y’don’t see ‘em often, most birds end up Leisurely and the like, and good for them! You’d be singin’ the same if you saw how jails are burstin’ at the seams, they are! You should be getting a pittance for your job as her warden… or p’haps not, for letting her within sight of another bird in that china shop.”
Shocked by this entirely, John pried further, but the policeman couldn’t shed light on Priscilla’s case specifically, he simply didn’t know, “Its highest order, that is, but by my estimation your lady’s been accused of treasonous action or slander to the King’s name! No surprise, that one has a ripe temper, she does. Slander, that’s always the charge… That or she just knows something she ought not to.”
John had thanked the police officer, but was left with one last warning: “Don’t go prying for what’s locked in ‘er head. They don’t put gold on us blokes…”
The ideas locked in my head had me reeling by the time the Collins men resumed their bickering over what should be done, and what John had already messed up. I couldn’t believe Priscilla had been roughed up and made as silent as a Lady or a Doll, just for some nothing about automaids! And I couldn’t believe Priscilla, for being so insolent in one of the most powerful domiciles in Britain! She had made her own bed entirely, hadn’t she?3
But upon my third loop between blaming myself, Priscilla, John, Jack, Lady Kettering, the King, Doctor Eaton, and God Himself, I wondered: who had been the other girl in the shop, forbidden to be under the same roof as another silenced woman? Could it have been Audrey, Renee, Gertrude, or any of the other Berkeley Gardens Ladies? Were they just as entwined in this mess, chained in gold along with their standard fashion, to doubly protect this valuable plan? Was I the only one who had not received a visit from these men in black?
But I had! My escort home from the tea social, over a month ago, now shone in an entirely different light, that of the plainclothes government man ensuring my Dollhood was complete, that I would not— could not drool a word. He had not been merely delivering me home: I had been two steps away from the lion’s maw, yet completely oblivious! Indeed, only my Dollhood had saved me.
Yet only my Dollhood had ensnared us all in such a mess in the first place…
My head ached terribly, and I truly didn’t know what to think anymore. I held dearly onto the hope I would get some sleep tonight, I just had to make it the rest of the day. No petulance, no scrambling to get John’s attention, no hesitation at Jack’s requests; just be Chastity, just be a Doll, perfect form, blankness is elegance…
John was still agonizing over what secret Priscilla’s useless tongue may be holding back, or what vitriol that tongue had cast against the blessed King, his inquisitory nature getting the best of him. I listened as always, imagining his face somewhere up there rather than the predator’s bulge in front of me, my captor fishing in his pocket.
I was lost in this daydream of John, enjoying his voice, calming, drifting off to sleep….
…when I suddenly felt the two heavy gifts inside me jostle to life! They began vibrating energetically with little ramping nor warning, setting off my lower holes’ tics and spasms, which cascaded through my hips, making me instantly dripping and ready! A great reflexive tensing clamped down on the two rods, a slip in my resistance simply inevitable at this point, and I distinctly felt the armed and pressurised shafts give in with a popping, bursting, deep into the recesses I could never reach, the unmistakable feeling of being flooded with seed!
My doubled legs quivered as the heat in my mons rose, my pulse quickening and my breath growing short. It was much too late.
“Good Lord! What is that b-b-buzzing?” John wondered above the table, whilst below I was staring, blinking, silently crying at Jack’s hand on a tiny metal remote held right before my eyes.
“Chastity?!” Jack admonished me, “What has gotten into you, darling?! We have a guest! This is hardly the time for such vulgar displays!”
I had never known him to be such an actor before this whole affair. Mere inches from my blank gaze, his thumb rubbed on the shiny little pebble, corresponding to a drastic increase in intensity even as he chided me again.
I… couldn’t care less, as sinful as it sounded. I couldn’t focus. My inhibitions crumbled, mind gone, letting my pelvis sink and dig the butt ends of those twin cocks deeper in, and out, just a desperate, pitiful inch of movement. It was almost nothing, but still I couldn’t cease grinding my unspeakables into the fine parquet floor.
I could hear the rhythmic, ‘vvvVRMMmmm… vvvVRMMmmm… vvvVRMMmmm…’ rumbling as I humped the ground with the accessories sticking out of me, and the whole room hummed with me.
I could hear Jack apologising for my lack of restraint.
I could hear John’s chair scoot away as he realised what debauchery was now unfolding, seeing through the ruse — or at least the inconsequential surface layer of deception in front of him, like peeling away my blush and leaving the deep well of embarrassment within entirely undisturbed. It must have been clear to see, up there in the land of men, the lecherous father having clearly lost interest in discussing the important matters at hand.
I could hear the sound of thinly-veiled disdain as John excused himself; disdain for his father, and for me. I sobbed silently. I couldn’t hear even a whisper of my old voice calling out in desire and desperation. Help! John! Please! Ohhh!
I could hear his echoing footsteps fade until they were awash in the buzzzz, my lover and saviour leaving again.
But I remained, in a losing battle with this man and this body. Here in this hell, I remained.
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I’m not aware of Chastity’s reaction to this arrangement, John never mentioned her, like he never mentioned the grandfather clock in his small foyer. It wasn’t relevant to his story. ↩
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I had never considered where such mundane household items and staples originated; the help was responsible for all procurement, so once again Priscilla’s actions were quite peculiar to me. ↩
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I never understood this saying, but now I get it! Making your own bed is always foolhardy, you should leave such tasks to your maid or your man, for otherwise you’re sure to do it wrong, make a mistake of some sort. I’m happy to have cleared this up! I believe I used it correctly, but whoever edits this will assist. ↩