Chapters Dollhood: A Woman's Choice Book 1 Chapter 7
The ride wasn’t too long — just under two hours to get from our home near Reading to St. Werburgh’s in Chiswick in the women’s lane of the M4 — but the time ticked away. Nanny was quiet, peering out the window at the autocars in the standard lanes zipping by, our automaids were charging from the fuel cells, and Chastity and I were taking a much-needed rest (or as much rest as our elaborate travelling wear allowed).
I looked over at Chastity who had her eyes closed, but I could tell she wasn’t asleep. Her head was proudly upright like mine and her panel gag was moving slightly, no doubt suckling on the inflated bulb which silenced her. Chastity liked to practise kissing boys, which was rather silly: real Dolls don’t kiss back, we are designed to receive passion and embody it, induce it in others, not give it actively. Chas knew that, everybody knows that, but I left her to her fantasies of the future. No doubt the talk of potential marriages earlier in the day had her head abuzz like it did mine but — and I say this as a sincere compliment — Chastity was always more easily entertained. For this I have always been jealous: simpleness is a virtue for a Doll.
For example, though we were both brought up to appreciate the fineries we wear, Chastity really loved fashion, whilst I only cared enough to keep up appearances (not that either of us had any choice in the matter anymore). But knowing her, Chastity probably loathed our new school outfits: they were far too plain for her tastes. I’ll describe the costume, you may agree.
Her sandy golden hair ran down over one shoulder in gentle ringlet curls, the only colour on a black and white dress suitable for an underage Lady-to-be that covered not only her chest and lower neck entirely but also her monoglove in the back in a single large sleeve. The dress came to six inches above her ankles, which like mine had been further elevated to the school’s minimum heel height of five inches only two weeks prior. Over top of all sat a dark grey travelling coat, a sleeveless cover of firm, warm, felt padding that sat on our shoulders and zipped down the back. These always made me feel like fine furniture being moved, which was such a lovely, endearing thought! Not so lovely was the discomfort of reclining into the seat with our arms bound behind us, a rare but familiar predicament from our day-trips to Reading. How did Ladies of Leisure live like this for their whole lives? It was a true shame the Dollmakers couldn’t just take these useless appendages already!
My gaze settled on the autocars for a while, then on Nanny. We would not be seeing her for quite some time, as only mechanical help, Dolls, and Dolls-to-be were allowed inside St. Werburgh’s doors, save for during celebrations, graduation, and the like. Her simple grey coat covered the simple maid’s uniform she always wore, and though I had grown used to the woman’s firm but caring guidance my whole life, I only now realised how much I was going to miss her, and the home I had grown up in, and my youth, which was about to come to an end. I began to tear up, looking at her, and wanted so badly to tell her how I felt, thank her for the years of being a common mother to Chastity and me, but tongue depressed as it was by the inflated gag, I never got the chance. Nanny’s attention was occupied with reading her tablet when I saw her brow furrow sharply, “Oh dear.”
Only a few minutes later we were off the motorway, onto the high street, and turning at the grand, gated archway leading into the courtyard of St. Werburgh’s Finishing School. And Nanny was quietly panicking. She had tried to reset the destination to go back to the Hodgkinson Estate but it was no use, it was controlled by Pappa’s hands only, as the law stated the autocarriage must be. It seems we were missing a part of the required outfit, but I of course could not ask which.
Even as Nanny fumbled about, activating the automaids on the back of their necks, Chastity and I were looking around at the courtyard of our new home wide-eyed, until she curtly commanded, “Heads up, eyes forward, girls. Hope, I’m quite serious. Unfocused and inviting, like we practised. As far as I’m concerned, from here on out you two are Dolls, and so you must behave like such. This school is not known for its leniency, any misbehaving will be heard by me and your Pappa. Understand?”
We did not signal our understanding in any way, save for a gentle tapping of our heel on the carriage floor.
“Excellent, my doves. I’m going to miss you both so very much.” I stifled another tear as she stepped out of the large door, followed by each of us, unsteady on our heels but supported by a strong hand from our automaids.
Upon rising, we saw a Doll and her help by the main doorway step toward us. She had quite an imposing figure for a Doll, not rail-thin like most, but at my mother’s age (or perhaps older, it’s so hard to tell with the plasti-skin), she must have grown up just before maternal vitamins coaxed the genetic tendency toward undue weight gain out of us born to be Dolls and Ladies. This stated, her breasts looked far more natural because of these curves, even though they were probably double to triple what they would have been if she were an unmodified commonwoman, and her extreme waist training was impressively severe for such a physique. She wore a more elegant version of our student’s uniform, blue slate grey with white lace, with no sleeves of course, and she wore no neck rose or fleur-de-bouche. Instead her neck featured a very utilitarian silver ring keeping her breathing hole open, and her thick-lipped O-mouth was filled with a strange ball with a perforated texture quite like on the telly’s hi-fi back home. And from it came:
“Good day, Hodgkinsons!”
If our mouths hadn’t been inflated full already I’m sure our jaws would’ve dropped. A Doll, speaking! We both looked at the oddity, wide-eyed. Of course her face remained pleasantly frozen as she noticed our glances, “Ah ah! Perfect Doll form, please. You do not want to start off on more of a wrong foot than you already have, young ones.”
We didn’t need to be told twice, and Nanny spoke for us. “I’m terribly sorry, Dame Henderson, it was an oversight on my part. I will return swiftly with Chastity and Hope’s neck corsets once current ones can be made.”
“You mean to tell me that these girls don’t even own ONE of such an essential item for their training? This is entirely unacceptable! It seems the Headmaster and I were wrong about admitting Chastity and Hope at all, if their family presents them in such poor standing. We expect the girls we admit from proper Society families to be a step above the rest, that is why they do not enroll for the full three years like the others! How do you think young Hope and Chastity here would fare at the Society Season two years past their prime?”
Nanny was more flustered than I had ever seen her before, “No no, oh dear, I apologise sincerely, my Lady, my Dame. They grow up so fast! We ran into some… The mistake was not their parents’ but mine.”
The buxom Doll’s heels clicked on the granite and marble paving stones as she toed gracefully to stand in front of me. No longer in the edges of my peripheral vision, I realised that this woman had an entirely unpredictable form of agency, for even though her voicebox was quite emotive and commanding, her face remained as blank as my mother’s, albeit with a more modern plasti-skin, with less of a sheen. The closest I can describe it to is a soft silicone, coloured to match fair English skin. It was the oddest feeling, that as surely as I knew her eyes were locked in a mid-distance lazy stare like mine were voluntarily, I could almost feel her peripheral gaze piercing me, inspecting me, assessing my worth as my father’s — and one day, my husband’s — property.
Nanny continued making excuses, “I assure you they have been trained…” but Dame Henderson just stamped her heel on the ground, breasts and bouffant bun jostling away, sharp puffs escaping the silver ring in her neck due to the exertion. “Ah ah! No more from you, governess. These lovely twins will not suffer for your sake.”
A sigh of relief escaped from all three of us.
“Or shall I say they will suffer no more than necessary, no more than to make it very clear that such unrefined presentation will not be tolerated within these walls. Maid, get the training collars.”
Returning from inside moments later, the Dame’s automaid presented ours with two hideously unfashionable leather posture collars, who then fastened them to our necks, making any movement quite impossible. This was not the first time we had worn such a device by any means, but the first we had been shamed with such a thing. Usually a neck corset was a piece of finery like any other, thin and rigid, it’s restrictive nature merely part of the fashion, to be worn with pride, but these crude elements left no mystery to their sole purpose, much like a dog’s collar.
Finally, Dame’s maid connected the ostentatious leash ring on the front of mine onto Chastity’s, with just enough slack that we could stand shoulder to shoulder.
“They will remain like this until you return with the appropriate apparel, so you should proceed with haste. Hodgkinsons, with me.” she stated simply before turning around and strutting smoothly inside the elaborate institution. Our maids bade her will as they were pre-assigned to, ushering us along, and with the rough collar choking me I could not even look back upon Nanny for the last time as we followed our new teacher past the threshold.
We later learned that Nanny was promptly fired upon returning to the Hodgkinson Estate, even after all those years, and over the next several months our home’s entire staff was replaced one by one with mechanical help: automaids, cooks, labourers to keep up with the times1. We received our new neck corsets three days later in the Express Post at Pappa’s great expense.
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Please refer to AutoServe’s forthcoming informational books on converting an estate staff over to an automated system, it’s really quite an interesting process. ↩