Chapters An Artist's Masterpiece Book 5 Chapter 1
April 2051
It was yet another birthday party. Yet another gathering of friends and family. Yet another celebration of a year added to her life. Yet another event for her husband to show her off to the world.
And yet this birthday party, Emily was happy.
Ecstatically so.
For her life had changed in ways that she could never have imagined. Ways in which she never dared hope for. Ways more akin to a fairy tale than real-life.
It had all started, of course, with Humphrey’s death. The operation that he’d undergone to increase his hormonal levels, coupled with his existing high blood pressure and his increasingly debauched lifestyle had resulted in a heart attack whilst on his bed with his wife and sister-in-law. Had he not transformed those two women into helpless doll wives then they might have been able to save him, to alert the medical authorities… anyone. But no, they were completely passive and helpless as he wanted them to be and so they simply stared mindlessly into space as he breathed his final few agonising breaths on earth.
That look of horror and despair was fixed in Emily’s mind forever. It pleased her immensely, just as did the knowledge of where Humphrey Battersby must now be if the Bible is to be believed, and how he must be suffering.
Payback.
They were all discovered the following morning by the automaid. By this time the two sisters had fallen asleep against each other. The automaid notified the police and very soon the house was crowded with medics and lawmen. There was nothing that either could do, save for notify the next-of-kin who was, of course, Emily. Humphrey had no living family closer than a second cousin in Bolton. Since Emily was helpless (literally) to do anything, they called Branwell who was most distressed. He relied on Humphrey for money and all he could ask himself was how he would cope from now on. Unless, of course, he could assume guardianship of Emily and Anne. After all, who would be a more natural choice? He was their brother after all, and their closest living relative following the death of their parents the year before.
“Not so fast,” said Humphrey’s solicitor, Mr. Rochester, who had also been called. “The only person who can make that decision is Mrs. Battersby herself.”
“But she is… you know, look at her!” protested Branwell.
“What she looks like,” replied Rochester, who seemed to have taken a dislike to this pushy relative by marriage, “is of no concern of mine. What the law is interested in is what she thinks like and, according to all the modification paperwork that the late Mr. Battersby lodged in my care, at no point was her mental ability ever impaired. Of course, the trauma of such an extreme lifestyle may have taken its toll on her mind but that is for a doctor to ascertain.”
“But…”
“Mr. Lowood, please do not bother me any further!”
That doctor came the following day and Emily was glad to see, it was not the dreaded Dr. Eaton. He did not come alone, but instead was accompanied by a smartly-dressed gentleman of around thirty who was introduced as a Mr. Robert Rivers of the Damsels in Distress organisation. Both Emily and Anne were sat on the chesterfield across from the two gentlemen and then the medical man began. “Ladies, my name is Dr. Bradley and I have been called here by Mr. Rochester, the late Mr. Battersby’s solicitor as I am a psychological specialist. It is my job to assess if you have the mental capacity to make decisions about your futures. Now ladies, I believe that you both still have the ability to nod slightly. Nod if you can understand me.”
Both dolls nodded.
“Excellent,” said the doctor, noting something on his form. “Now then, Emily Battersby, can you nod for me.”
The left doll nodded.
“And Anne Lowood.”
The right doll nodded.
“Excellent. It appears you do have mental capacity. Now, the only obvious candidate for your guardianship is your brother, Branwell Lowood. Is that an option you should like me to pursue?”
Neither doll nodded. Anne even shifted her bosom side to side in a desperate attempt to decline.
“Am I to take that to mean that you do not want to be put into the care of your brother?”
Both dolls nodded.
“Hmm, interesting. Well, that can be honoured but it leaves us with a different problem, that being who shall take care of you? Your husband has left you a considerable amount of money Emily, although you have nothing Anne. Do you wish to remain together?”
Both dolls nodded.
“And therefore, would you be prepared to take financial responsibility for Anne, Emily?”
The left doll nodded.
“Right. But you both still need a guardian to administer the estate and keep you safe. But who? Perhaps this is the place to bring my companion, Mr. Rivers into the conversation.”
“Thank you kindly, Doctor,” said the other man. “Ladies, I am a representative of a charitable organisation which is called Damsels in Distress. We are a group of concerned Christians who abhor the practice of turning healthy and happy young women into helpless dolls for the satisfaction of their husband or guardians. We lobby parliament to get the practice banned and we help any doll who has been left without a guardian due to a death, which is why we are here today as both of you fall firmly into that category. We look after these dolls by helping them to regain their former lives by paying for reparative operations. For example, to replace their amputated limbs using new procedures pioneered in the Soviet Union, or restore other functions if possible, such as free eye movement and voice recovery. Be warned, we cannot reverse everything. Faces like yours can never be restored to the original but the mindless doll look can be transplanted in a similar operation to the original so some semblance of humanity can be restored. We are here to help and are prepared to find spouses for both of you from our organisation who will nurture and support you. However, as you wish to stay together, it would be possible to only marry one of you — as bigamy is, of course a crime — but the other could stay as a companion. So, ladies, does this idea sound of interest to you or would you prefer to remain as dolls — some women do. Do you wish to be helped by our charity?”
Both dolls nodded.
“So, Emily, are you therefore prepared to marry me on the condition that I restore you as much as is medically possible to your original condition?”
The left doll nodded.
Emily’s second marriage took place the following day. It was a low-key affair in the church where Robert worshipped, attended only by the vicar, Robert’s sisters, Anne and some representatives of the charity. That night he did not consummate the marriage as, “I want only to enjoy my wife when she can fully consent and participate”. The kindness and thoughtfulness touched Emily to the core, although it did nothing to relieve the frustration that she was now feeling after years of extremely regular sexual activity.
The next day, she and Anne returned to Great Ormond Street and the long, slow, and painful process of reconstruction began. New arms, specially grown in labs across the Channel, were transplanted onto her shoulders which were unfused from their unnatural position. That was a lengthy operation taking many hours but it took months for her to learn how to use them properly. In stages her mammoth breasts were reduced to a more manageable size (although still somewhat bigger than before any operations had ever taken place) whilst similar work was done on her enormous bottom. Her toilet arrangements however were non-reversible, if she disliked incontinence, although with the chance to talk and hold again, Emily didn’t mind.
The biggest and most delicate operation however, was the face transplant and mouth reconstruction. As her husband had explained from the outset, recovering the original Emily and Anne was out of the question and so the girls had to decide how they wanted to look from now on. To be honest, Emily had never particularly liked her plain visage and so wouldn’t have wanted to return to it (although anything was preferable to the vacant doll look that Humphrey gave her) since the old Emily, innocent and unscarred by life, was lost forever too. She looked around for inspiration, something beautiful yet also good and kind. One day Robert showed her a photograph of his late mother when she was but nineteen. Mrs. Rivers Senior had been one of the founders of Damsels in Distress and a fervent campaigner for women’s issues, and straightaway Emily knew. “That is the face I want,” she wrote unsteadily (since her voice was not working at this point) and, touched to the core, Robert assented.
Full jaw movement and throat recovery was beyond their skill, so both girls had to choose from a selection of prosthetic voices. An implant in the speech centre of their brain allowed them to communicate to a specially-made speaker wirelessly, but this was not as easy as it sounded and, like their arms, required months of practice. Their hideous plastic lips were remodeled more naturally but their mouths were far from recovery, for the work to reshape them had been extensive. Emily eventually chose her speaker to be added to her still-necessary fleur de bouche, remaking the object from a symbol of silence to one of regained independence and recovery.
When they were implanting the voice processor, the doctors found the mad Dr. Eaton’s trademarked implant, which had been the source of her reflexive oral, vaginal, and anal contractions, as well as her lack of eye motion. What they also found was that it was positioned in an incredibly dangerous place to remove and even if she survived, she may lose sensory functions in those areas during the operation, so for her protection and well-being they desisted. Luckily they rigged the contact switch in her temple to always allow her full sight, never again locked into staring at the wall for months at a time.
Throughout all of this, Anne remained extremely close with her sister, a closeness borne of them sharing the hardest of times and the most degrading of beds. Both sisters had been scarred by their experience but in different ways and Anne’s reaction was to cling to her elder sister. The one thing that Anne had liked about their doll transformation was that they had been made to look nearly identical, only the colours of their neck roses telling them apart, like twins (in actuality there was a year between them). And so, when Emily chose her new face, so too did Anne and a week later when they recovered from the operation and sedatives, both sported the same happy, pure expressions with the same chestnut curls cascading down their backs. At last, at long last they were human again!
And so, on this birthday party to celebrate Emily’s 24th year, she was happy, full of the joy of life and thankful to the wonderful husband who stood by her side.