Chapters Dollhood: A Woman's Choice Book 1 Chapter 4

Many Ladies of Leisure take breaks from their gags once safely in the company of other Ladies, and so I feel obliged to mention that the lot of them were lowly in our eyes; noncommittal. If you are going to entrust your body to the man in your life, which all English women must do by law now anyways, it must be fully wrested from your control! That is the only way to express your true devotion: so we were taught, and so it is.

So after that day, my gag stayed put nearly all of the time, pumped thoroughly so as to suppress noise and any movement of the tongue. Nanny told us that when we grew up and became educated Dolls-to-be, they would be replaced by elegant fleur-de-bouches, but since we were very much still in training, a gag was more appropriate as these could be locked shut and not spat out. And indeed, I must confess, during those first few weeks in particular, had I been wearing a fleur-de-bouche instead, I probably would have spat it out!

It was so frustrating you see, not being able to communicate with anyone. I couldn’t ask for anything, nor tell people things that I wanted them to know. At first, on countless occasions, I tried, the only result being an unfeminine groaning noise. Chastity adapted easily and I think she only groaned on two or three occasions after our fitting, always followed by apologetic eyes, but for me, who was always the more headstrong, I did it time after time before catching myself.

At first Nanny chastised me, but when the problem continued past the first week, she instituted a regime whereby every groan or whimper resulted in five paddles on my bottom that evening. After a week or two of a sore bum, it worked, and within a month even the thought of trying to speak left my head. That is how dollification works, I see it now; through repeated behaviours, routine, for better or for worse.

Unable to speak (save at mealtimes) and unable to use our hands, gradually our days changed. Running had never been encouraged, any young offenders finding themselves with their anklets linked by a short chain so as to keep each step tight, close, feminine. But now we would have been frightened to rush around, lest one of us took a spill with no hands to break the fall. We played less, talked and sang not at all, and instead began to just sit there, in whatever room we had been left in, unable to open any door, locked or not. Games of ‘Hide and Seek,’ ‘Blind Man’s Bluff,’ or even ‘Tea Time’ became far less frequent as we replaced them with ‘Doll in the Dollhouse’ or ‘Best Mummy.’ And with this change in focus, came more changes in lifestyle, or at least, in dress.

The first change came the very next day after we were first fitted with our gags. We awoke in the morning — still gagged, I may add — with our golden bracelets¹ clipped to the headboard, and after bathing and attending to our toilette, after our arms were laced into their glove but before we donned our day dresses, our maids fitted us with something most unexpected: a pair of padded, absorbent cotton nappies each. I longed to ask quite why we were to wear something that we hadn’t needed since we were toddlers, something babyish, not adult at all, but I could not and so I simply assented as I always did. However, later that day during our morning lesson, Nanny explained: since we could no longer speak nor open doors for ourselves, then it may be that if we needed the toilet, we could not attract the attentions of a maid or servant, and so the nappies were there to prevent accidents.

I should add here that regarding our toilet habits, at no point had we been expected to clean ourselves, or use the lavatories of men and servants. From the earliest days of childhood our maids had wiped and perfumed our bottoms after discharging waste, and rinsing enemas were routine, commonly followed by a scented pessary to keep even our most unrefined places tamed. Thus it was that there was no significant change here after we started to wear our armbinders. I’ve been told recently that this is not the norm beyond the upper classes.

It was only the very next day that I was forced to use my nappy, as the maids had failed to notice the desperation in my silent eyes as they led us to a visit with Mother in her Doll Room. Unlike before the gag, when we would have hinted our need to “refresh ourselves” like any proper lady would, I had no idea how to signal my needs save for an improper stomping fit right there in the hallway, which surely would have resulted in a harsh paddling or perhaps even the rarely-used cane. So I was left in the bright pink Doll Room with Mother and Chastity, silently emoting to the maid’s back as she closed the door behind her with a fateful click. I sat there for a while, but the pressure only kept building until I could no longer focus my eyes on the wall with the correct level of sultry indifference. I promptly stood up, and began to pace about as gracefully as I could in my well-trained glide to distract myself from what was now likely inevitable.

Mother was of course no help, as she stood silently on her doll stand, the phallic massager buzzing away, muffled under the layers of her dress, as her forceful breaths escaped from under the lovely pink lace choker about her neck, chest rising and falling as she trembled. The doll stand, which she was put on twice a day to save her from the endless sitting of her sedentary lifestyle, held her between the legs like a penetrating saddle, much like a Doll’s special toilette.

At that age we didn’t really understand what was happening to her, save for that it was “normal maintenance; terribly necessary for Mummy’s well-being,” as Father had put it. Please remember that, while of course we didn’t understand, witnessing stimulation such as this was quite normalised for us, as even though we were not always present, Mother had upheld this standing appointment twice-daily for our entire lives, and continues to do so today, whilst visiting Ladies often had alarms, reminders, or messages from their husbands set to little buzzes barely heard beneath their dresses. Titillation was as much part of the decadent life of Leisure as music or refreshments.

And so I looked to Mummy’s pouting face, blank as always, the only expression I had ever seen, blinking away automatically even as it took on a rosy glow from her exertion. Her eyes did not focus on me, they never had, but I knew she could still see me. So I silently asked from behind my embroidered golden ‘Hope’ for her to somehow tell me how she managed all day, every day. It was like a prayer to God asking for strength, as the chances of a reply from our idol was as good as one from on high.

And there and then I filled my nappy.

The second change came only weeks later, when Nanny stepped into our playroom only to find us far from Best Mummy like we had been assigned to play, but something else, something long-forbidden.

I can just picture how we must have looked; splayed out on the carpet with our shoes and socks pulled off, dresses bunched up around our hips trying to play Patty Cake silently with our bare feet one day. Chas had of course been mortified when I suggested it, kicking her and gesturing with my eyes in our secret language, but we were sisters and best friends so she would never have tattled on me, and besides; I could tell that even Chastity was getting bored with Best Mummy. It did not take much skill to stare at a point on the wall and keep as still as possible, and my unladylike impatience made her the easy winner every time. But using our feet was strictly taboo, and we knew this. Bare feet were only to be seen at bedtime, and we had always been told: “A pen outside of the right hand only ever wrote what the devil was thinking.” Even as big-girls, with right and left hands numb in their restraints, we dared not stoop that low.

But her boredom and my curiosity met halfway, and so we kicked off our shoes and plopped ourselves down on the playroom carpet like kids again, helping each other remove our socks with our toes. Using our bound arms as support behind us we raised our legs, silently giggling as we tried to ‘clap’ our feet in the old rhythms, myself even going so far as to moan the nursery rhyme behind my gag to keep us in step, though it overrode my newly-ingrained instincts with difficulty. But, if we were going to go through with this, we had to do it right.

And that’s when the door opened.

When Nanny found us committing our shameful act, we received twenty paddles each with our nappies pulled down, plus ten more for me when I moaned at her. I had merely been trying tearfully to tell Nanny it was all my fault, to spare Chastity, but she cared not and I learned a valuable lesson about Dollhood. Oh, I can feel the soreness of my behind like it was yesterday. Afterwards, we never wore slippers and socklets that we could kick off again. Instead we were always clothed in light sheer stockings or thick thigh-high socks (depending on the weather) which were securely clipped to new garter belts over our nappies. This covering was accompanied by new shoes with both a lockable buckle and a significant heel.

This brought our days of skipping about, and the essence of our childhood, to a close. The tight heels, whilst much much lower than the steep shoes that Mother wore, kept our once-confident steps trepidatious and mincing for months. What’s more, it seemed that whenever we grew comfortable in our new footwear, we would be greeted the next morning with slightly higher heels, increasing ever so slightly, keeping us on our toes, so-to-speak. Of course, Chastity and I had always begged to wear “heels like Mummy” when we were younger, so we were only appreciative and proud once the punishment was long forgotten.

And in the end, Chas and I got what we had really wanted in the first place. After our charade nearly flew under the radar, we were rarely left alone to play Best Mummy anymore. Oh no, now we spent much more time with Nanny and our maids, keeping us far more active either in the gardens, or the drawing room, and we were even taken with Mother to the township for her visits to Layton’s² along with all the other Ladies and Dolls of the area, though we weren’t old enough for anything but the nail and hair salon and those refreshing, tinctured enemas and pessaries. But just becoming more active, in our own way, left us quite content with our lives.

And of course we never tried to use our feet again.

For those who are unaware, these bracelets are pretty golden rings that clip on tightly, blocking any signals from the wearer to their hands, and some still allow feeling back, though ours didn’t. I’m afraid I never asked how they worked, it’s not important for a young Lady to know such things. I’m sorry to not be more of a help. ↩
You can learn more about the experience at Laydon’s in Allison Becomes a Lady of Leisure. It is a longstanding establishment well worth a visit! ↩