Chapters Dollhood: A Woman's Choice Book 3 Chapter 25
I watched my companion and caretaker fidget with her hair out of the corner of my eye as we stood upon the porchway to the Kettering residence. After a short stroll down the precisely manicured street, passing a few Ladies out for a gentle stroll with their help guiding the way, their silent nods meeting my slow curtseys, the few steps up had left me winded, my chest heaving visibly even under my fancy street dress, but I was calm, relishing the fresh air coursing past the fleur-de-cou in the nape of my neck. It would be good to see my new friends again. Perhaps my companion would tell them of my harrowing saga from the previous day! Perhaps I’d finally have something to contribute to the idle chatter! That is, if she could get the chip off her shoulder.
Priscilla Barnes, my help for the day, had been extremely apprehensive all morning, unfamiliar with autolacers and toilettes and even just caring for someone who was unable. Her calling was not this, I assure you. What’s more, she was closer to Althea’s temperament than that of the aristocracy. She played the game, dressed a certain way (though frugally), held herself as proudly as she could, surely, but every marble column we passed seemed to aggravate her further.
And so here I was, left with a commonwoman, a feminist of all things, on the former Chancellor of the Exchequer’s front porch waiting to join his wife for tea. It was an arrangement only my dear husband could stumble us into.
“Entirely daft of John not to mention your daily social is hosted by Lord Kettering’s wife. I mean honestly! I’m hardly dressed for the occasion!” Priscilla uttered, patting at her nearly-flat chest and boyish figure as if to iron out the wrinkles visible even from my limited eyesight. She was correct. Indeed it seemed while some social clubs rotated through their members hosting, Lady Annette Kettering had such means as to host for the block, and quite enjoyed doing so.
Priscilla was muttering something about a black autovan parked on the street behind us when the front door opened wide to reveal an autobutler and automaid, nodding in silent welcome before the maid helped me in the door and the butler handed Priscilla a golden card.
“What is this? ‘As ordered by Her Royal Highness Queen Georgia’s Leisure Mandate of 2013, all noblewomen with means must follow the statutes of Leisurely Living henceforth…’ yes yes, I know the law but I am not of the nobility, my father is but a barrister and holds no peerage!”
I stopped to listen, the maid holding me steady like Priscilla had kept forgetting to do on our stroll over. The faceless, voiceless butler turned over the card, pointing, prompting a huff from my guest as she continued.
“‘As ordered by the Right Honourable Bryan Chambers in the Vicinity Act of 2048, the Leisure Mandate will henceforth apply to all women without a functional role within designated properties.’ But that’s absurd! What is a ‘designated property’? That could mean anyone, anywhere!” She looked to me for support, someone who must know more about this system, this life she had skirted for so long, but found only a blank gaze and a soft gulp as I swallowed excess saliva behind my flowerless gag. I turned my hips, and therefore my whole upper body toward the foyer, indicating it was time we got on with it. She was beginning to make a scene.
She pleaded with the automaton, “Please, I’ve been tasked with caring for Mrs. Collins here,” but the butler insisted, gesturing at the maid’s iron grip about my corseted waist, quite safe and secure, before he fetched a monoglove and simple cloth gag from the cabinet.
“Oh heavens, welcome welcome!” Lady Kettering bubbled from her seat. “We were beginning to wonder if our punctual little doll friend had grown ill, and you’ve brought a guest to make up for yesterday! What of your maid?”
I curtseyed in front of the hostess but otherwise did not respond as I was led slowly to an open seat, to perch my well-padded behind on the edge.
“In lieu of the unable, would you care to introduce yourself, young lady?”
Priscilla was obviously very uncomfortable with the bindings on her arms as the gag was removed as quickly as it had been donned by the maid. Leisurely doctrine proclaimed it only necessary in public and mixed settings, foyers and transitory spaces as such, or if the Lord came home, but she would not be so lucky getting the monoglove taken off. Shrugging a bit to ease the strain, Priscilla stared around the opulent room at the ornate designs and furnishings as well as the women of the block all gathered, ten or so, all eyes on her.
I sighed silently, wishing I could tell her not to gawk, thankful my body had not allowed me such breaches of etiquette upon my first visit.
“Ahem.” Lady Kettering cleared her throat slightly and raised her eyebrows.
“Ah, uh… My name is Priscilla Barnes, Madam. Excuse me, you have a lovely home.”
“Well isn’t that nice of you to say, but surely you mean my husband does? Not a worry, I can see plainly that this is your first experience in person with Ladies of Leisure.”
“Well yes, Madam, it is—”
“Annette, please!” Lady Kettering interrupted. “We don’t trouble ourselves with such rigidity past introductions.”
I heard Priscilla pause, obviously trying not to make a smart remark on ‘rigidity’ upon seeing the Lady herself wearing such strict corsetry at her midsection and neck to hold up an elaborate arrangement of greying golden hair, arms bound in the vintage gigot style, doubled under the puffy sleeves with gloved facsimiles resting uselessly in her lap. This was an old fashion, leaving her hands wrapped to her shoulders uselessly, yet quite invisible under the elaborate dress. I held my tiny breath but Priscilla withdrew what was hanging on the tip of her tongue.
“My apologies, you’re quite right, I am not of this world of yours. Indeed, I was asked to attend to Hope’s needs by John— uhm, Mr. Collins, but instead I have been bound in the leisurely style quite unnecessarily by your butler.”
“Oh, well it was only following the guidelines my husband has put in place for his home. We don’t see commonwomen around these parts often, and the Lord being who he is, safety is of utmost priority. Relax and enjoy yourself! The young Mrs. Collins here will be quite comfortable until we are finished today and she is placed back in your care.”
Priscilla shrugged a bit, fighting the ache in her arms, forced to hold her meagre chest so proudly, but she bowed her head slightly, acquiesced.
Another woman piped up, Renee Linscombe from a few doors down. “It’s quite unfashionable to have an actual maid these days, as AutoServe products are better and quieter than any human help—”
“Oh please save us the sales call, dear. Harry isn’t here to impress.” Annette bit, before looking back to Priscilla, “Excuse our dear Renee, her husband is the young heir to the company that manufactures our staff here and, well, everywhere! What she means to say is, you… work? And as a maid? We have not hired ‘real’ household staff in several years now.”
While I stared at the far wall, I tried to focus on the women in my periphery, all bound in various ways, proper decorative Ladies for whom the idea of “work” or labour was foreign to all. Whilst I had only gathered bits from my old discussions with Althea, I understood there was a hierarchy to things, a respect, much like life in the affluent nobility, and I could tell Priscilla was bristling at being referred to as a lowly maid.
“Actually, I am only helping my friend’s doll here for the time being, as her automaid malfunctioned yesterday.”
“Impossible!!” Renee squealed while the rest of the room shuffled a bit. I could understand her worry, her arms in a tight reverse prayer and almost as helpless as I was.
“Uhm, it is possible,” Priscilla implored, “This is the risk with firing human staff, all machines break down eventually. Trust me, I’m a scientist.”
With the finery tightly bound around her neck, Annette could no more turn her head than I could, but her eyes pierced Priscilla. “I do not take lightly to liars or talespinners in my home, dear. Honestly there is no shame in being a companion or help to the young mistress here.”
Priscilla was getting angry at these accusations. I tapped my heel to change the subject but no one heard, or maybe they thought I was simply shifting my weight. It was useless, I could only watch this play out.
“Excuse me, Madam, but I was educated as a particle physicist at Imperial College for the last four years. I am no liar.”
“Surely you jest??” A large-chested lady piped up with poorly-hid envy in her voice. Gertrude, I think her name was.
“I am also curious.” Lady Annette admitted. “If you are a fizzy-sist, as you say, then why are you here with our dear Hope? Surely the kingdom needs your mighty mind.”
The sarcasm had been ladled on thick by the end and Priscilla was nearly breaking in indignance and shame, but this was the Lady’s home and to spar with her was out of the question. Annette’s accusatory glare said as much.
“I… was not accepted to continue.”
Indeed, my help for the day had not been accepted to the graduate program at Imperial that John had. Four years they had been colleagues, as odd and wrong as that may sound to you civilised folk reading this. Priscilla being a woman of the continental style, independent and wilful, one of just a handful to get into any respectable London college, and John being a very open-minded gentleman, they naturally gravitated toward each other. I had asked him once, soon after we figured out the letterboard system, if he fancied her.
Arranged as we had been by our fathers, with John not even a Societyman prepared to own a Doll like myself, it was not an unwarranted question. Of course by asking I was giving into that jealous womanhood I knew I had to shed, and Teacher Margaret or Eleanor would likely implore me to remember men had every right to sow their passions as they pleased, but it was a question that would tear at my insides if left unasked.
But John hadn’t turned into the stammering wreck I had expected, saying resolutely, “I don’t fancy her, dear. I respect her, and enjoy our discussions. She is smarter than me in some of these subjects. If she were born with a… you know… then she very well might have my place in the Fusion Laboratory.”
I don’t know if that settled my nerves or made my blood run hotter. But why? Did I want to be that for him? Of course not, I couldn’t, it was wrong!
But pointless hypotheticals aside, Priscilla didn’t have a cock, and she obviously hadn’t knelt in front of enough at Imperial, as she was given some small honours for her first degree and not invited back. So her once-lenient father had made his position very clear:
“Even though I am twenty-four and well past my best matchmaking years, my father has decided my place is in marriage, to be a traditional homemaker, and has ceased his support until I abandon my studies and succumb to his reasoning. Back to the countryside, back to old-fashioned boys and dances and socials. Back to pretending to be honoured by a banker’s son showing interest in my ‘child-bearing hips.’ So… when a friend calls for help with his wife, I’m not going to refuse, unemployed as I am.”
“So you help your friend here to make ends meet, I understand,” Annette clearly skirted the notion of John and her being improperly familiar, of her scoffing at motherly duty, she skirted every controversial element as if it had not been uttered, and she surely did not understand such financial precarity at all. “…but your father must be a smart man, and it isn’t our place to meddle in their affairs, including their plans for us. Our delicate dispositions are simply not suited for it. I’m happy to hear your mentors wanted the best for you, though, casting you out from such unwomanly pursuits, setting you on a proper path before it’s too late. You know, I’d be happy to make some calls for potential suitors in your… shall we say… calibre, if you so wish.”
I beamed inside. Such an offer from an upstanding Lady was more than generous to someone as plain and brusque as Priscilla! But I could practically feel her anger radiating from beside me on the sofa.
“Perhaps. I appreciate the offer, but I have not given up on my studies.”
From the room came a few little gasps. It might as well have been a slap on the face to refuse so directly. “How could she be so careless?” I thought to myself, but Annette took it in stride.
“Suit yourself, dear. Do tell us, what happened to Hope’s automaid?”
“Well it seems to have broken down yesterday, stuck on a… well… a cleaning loop, leaving Hope here unattended on the floor of her room for hours, unfed and alone. Mr. Collins found her like that last evening.”
“Oh how awful!” I heard a squeak from across the room. It could only be Audrey Fentiman, an extremely fair girl, just older than me. If I recall correctly, she had been reared and educated in an extremely pious Catholic finishing school in Ireland, St. Brigid’s something1, where all the students were bound in the Leisurely style from childhood, hands in prayer behind their necks with rosaries entwined in their useless fingers before the stiffness of age set in, eyes brought skyward with special braces and weighted hair-ties pulling their chin up toward the light of God. Now eighteen, the young Lady could no longer move her neck nor her arms, regardless of bracing, and held her face straight up, so as to never see the shame of original sin upon her chest nor between her legs. Much the same justification had been used to ensure I could never look down at my enhanced body either, though which one of us was more dramatically altered was up for debate. At least she could still look around upward and speak her mind, though with induced puberphonia, her words came out in the most innocent voice of early adolescence, quite juxtaposed with her very adult body.
I had been called to her residence once, before she realised how impossible it was to exchange pleasantries with a Doll, before she realised there was no point to ask my gag removed but to make a mess, and I must say her ceiling was decorated like the Sistine Chapel, with not even the powder room spared from elaborate oil paintings for her to admire. It was a shame I could not gaze up at it. Today though, she wore her elaborate hair upright upon her face and was left even more blinded than usual.
“This automata is getting out of hand!” Audrey chirped. “I had my wedding gift malfunction just last week, I’m sure you all heard it humming away under my dress for minutes at a time, I tried to be discreet, I did, but it was just unbearable!”
Renee turned to look at Audrey, or rather look at her long neck, dainty chin, and proud décolletage, “Yes you could hardly steady your nerves, I thought your husband was simply sending you telegrams, and I didn’t want to ask. Mine sends me nearly to my knees with a simple ‘hello, dear.’”
As if on cue, my gift triggered a loud spasm through my pelvis, a rumble I knew could be heard by all, whilst my cheeks flushed red. Priscilla was aghast at such casual discussions, and looked at my lap, horrified, as if only just realizing where that subtle noise had been originating from all morning. My body still reacted to the occupiers between my legs, randomly, teasingly, and I wondered if my tea companions knew that I was more alike to their toys and gifts than like them.
A few giggles could be heard, along with a few sighs from the women whose husband’s gifts were either quite inert or too small to entertain.
Gertrude spoke up, herself a more standard Lady of Leisure, rigid hourglass waist and neck corset, arms in reverse prayer and her husband’s taste for large breasts readily apparent on her chest, “You have little experience with Dolls too, I presume?”
Priscilla glanced over while the room envied her free neck to look where she pleased, “To be entirely honest, I was initially abhorred to learn my colleague had married a Doll.”
The women made tiny gasps, constrained by their tight corsets. The open claim of being a ‘colleague’ to a man, offering critique of a man’s affairs with his own home and property, and the speaking of ill wills in general! Of someone sitting right next to her no less! Such was well beyond fodder for a tea social, and Annette stepped in, “And pray tell, what if she had simply followed the leisurely tenets? What judgement have you then?”
It seemed my attendant couldn’t take two breaths without putting her foot in her mouth, and what’s more, she was taking the bait…
“Well that I expected, knowing his father’s aspirations and the Mandate, it would be unavoidable. It’s been a century, almost half of which the lifestyle has been mandatory for you lot; Leisure is entrenched in our culture now, to uproot it would be impossible, but this…” I could only feel the disdain that emanated from my companion as her eyes pierced through me somewhere to the left of where my Doll face stared, obliviously.
There were murmurs in the room, “Uproot?!”
I tapped my heel hopelessly. What was she thinking? Priscilla had to cease such discussions at once!
“Have you no restraint nor care for your charge’s feelings?” Annette chastised.
“Well according to the Society of Dolls, it seems she shouldn’t have any feelings!” Priscilla snapped back. “This young woman’s identity and thoughts have been erased, even more than yours, don’t you see?”
Audrey whined toward the ceiling, “No, my hubby said they’re still in there, just being very very good! You’re going to hurt poor little Hope if you keep saying such mean things!”
Indeed I was hurt, entirely unsurprised but hurt all the same. Priscilla had made her opinions quite clear to John after returning from our honeymoon, that I was nothing but a plastic toy and a threat to women’s independence across the United Kingdom, that John was a scoundrel like his father Jack, just like the rest. It had taken a long while for them to reconnect, and only once John had explained the circumstances of our marriage, showed her the letterboard and his efforts to establish a way of speaking, to subvert my dollhood, only then had she begun to visit him again and coax him on toward my “liberation”, much to my chagrin. I was confident what had been done to us dolls was irreversible, and attempting would only bring strife and malfunction, I knew it.2
Alas, were she truly fighting for my independence, even against my unspoken desires, Priscilla would not have hurt me so. In truth, I was naught to her but a symbol, a dirty -ism, and Nanny had been right about those dangerous, unpleasant things. I don’t know if my tea companions saw that. I surely didn’t, young as I was. I thought she hated me.
But Annette saw it, and she had entertained this agitator long enough, “Read the room, dear. These gentle women came here for pleasant chatter and refreshments, to fill their quiet days with mirth and good company, not to be incited by Bolshevik propaganda from the continent! Do you think us an entrapped class even when our lives are so carefree? Renee, what’s the first thing you would do if your hands and arms were yours to do with what you wish?”
“Me?!?” the young woman exclaimed. “But they are! I wish them to remain in their proper place, out of sight and out of mind!”
“Yes, dear, but what if they weren’t?”
Renee scoffed, brows tensed in thought, “Well I’ve no idea… what an odd question! Perhaps hold my own teacup? No, I’d surely spill. Or touch up my lipstick afterwards? But what’s the point? My maid can do it better than I ever could, and she is designed to be at my beck and call! I… Don’t prompt me with such ridiculous scenarios, Annette, just look at how fashionable they are like this! Men fancy a bare, weak shoulder on their women, it’s true! The man on the HiFi said so last week! You know, I’ve proudly held reverse prayer since I was eight!”
Audrey made a high-pitched scoff, “I highly doubt such claims.”
“Of course I have! Well… ugh… fine! In public I have, but at night I wear my bracelets anchored to the bed. Are you happy? We can’t all be human statues like you and Hope, a stretch here and there feels marvellous.”
“I’m sure it does.” Audrey bleated righteously. Her neck, shoulder joints, and arms were calcified in position after years of training and bondage, like the Dollmakers had done to me seemingly overnight. She had likely never known the idea of free arms, to ask her would garner an even less-substantial answer.
Renee glared at Audrey but the girl’s upturned face and covered eyes missed the sting, “This is all entirely beside the point! They’ve still been unused for nigh-fifteen years, as they should be! I don’t know what I would do with them just… there, blocking the view of my hard-fought waist measurements, but I do know I would look atrocious, and Harry would surely not approve, never mind old Mr. Linscombe. If I didn’t have my prayer binder back there wound around my forearms, or the dress sleeve, if they were just… ugh… loose… well, I would likely request a similar enhancement as Hope has had done to her shoulders. By the way, they look lovely, honey!”
I blushed happily, a small pulse rippling through my hips teasingly as if in response. Unable to chat along with the others, I received many compliments simply as a means to make me feel included, but you wouldn’t hear me complaining!
Annette thanked Renee for submitting herself to the thought experiment and continued, her glare drilling into Priscilla, who was uncharacteristically quiet, shocked by Renee’s genuine lack of imagination.
The nigh-elderly Lady took on a new tone with my companion, some parts maternal, others threatening, “You see, Ms. Barnes? Surely you must understand now that Leisure is not just a costume and gag which can be donned on and off like you have today. It’s the grand idea and intention behind our culture, and your little friend Hope’s too.”
Priscilla glanced over at my blank face, confused. “I don’t see the connection, she is more artifice than woman now! Do you all not feel threatened by her very invention? Aren’t you afraid you’ll be next?!”
The room laughed, and Audrey piped, “Afraid of cute little Hope? Whatever for?”
Annette was not laughing, “Though I’m well aware not all fine women in His Majesty’s Kingdom can afford to live and behave like we do, and Leisure inspires much adoration, ridicule, and gossip amongst the commoners, here in this house you must reverse your perspective.
“Look at the rest of London from the view of us devout ladies, if you will: exclusion from the Mandate based on financial means is a social program, a system of welfare, a temporary allowance for the delusion of independence amongst commonwomen whilst the ability to live in a way most in line with our rightful place under the King and his subjects is democratised by the private market.”
Priscilla gulped, our hostess’ meaning crystallizing into a dark future in her head, one of fully mandatory Leisure, refined bondage for nearly all women in the United Kingdom, working-class upward. All made possible by advancements in technology, seamless control as men enjoyed the spoils, the once-economically-necessary women replaced and served by automata.
“Do you… really reckon as much, Madam?”
“Do I reckon?” The silver-gilded Lady repeated with a short, corset-constrained laugh, “Dear, the Lord of this house laid out this very plan with Renee’s father-in-law years ago. The multi-decade project is nearly written into law with support from the King and both the Lords and Commons, and long after I’m gone, your children’s generation will know nothing else but refined objecthood amongst its fairer sex. When you call your little companion ‘abhorrent’, you insult us all, everyone in this room and our futures, and you sully what our good men have been working toward so diligently!”
Priscilla was despondent, unable to fight Lady Annette’s surprisingly articulate line of reasoning, whilst the other girls were all looking at each other. No one in the room had expected a lesson quite like that, but then again we didn’t usually have radical commonwomen for tea, either! Priscilla was despondent, yes, but soon she was angry again, a gut response. “You’re off your rocker, you’re a fanatic, I’ll tell the papers, the press! There will be revolt!”
But Lady Annette had put up with enough. “Maid, please replace Ms. Barnes’ gag so we may have our shortbread and refreshments in peace.”
“You can’t do this, I’m going to— UNFF!”
Bound as she was, Priscilla had no chance, and was silenced almost immediately by the automaid, mouth pumped and overfilled like a young girl’s would be for spouting such nonsense. She tried to stand up and leave but the automaid’s gentle but iron hand kept her down, kept her tantrum contained. Eventually she settled and joined myself and two of the other women in muffled silence, whose husbands had deemed their voices not to be heard even in the presence of just other ladies. One listened raptly as we did, the other being a lovely Theresa Redmill, who additionally wore special earplugs at all times and had spent the whole dramatic affair nodding and smiling (around her gag) to nothing in particular.
With Priscilla’s performance interrupted, myself left quite embarrassed and unable to apologise, with not even an automaid to help me rise and curtsey to the hostess, the group resumed their idle chatter.
Renee piped up, “Harry just installed an AutoTrack for me. Hope, you must try it if you’re experiencing these troubles! The solitude is simply divine, left in peace to decorate the room, or up and about exercising my legs and behind for him, a simple tether attached to keep me from improper areas of my husband’s home, like stairs or his private quarters. I must say, I feel safe and sound, and it’s exciting too! A simple pull upward and onward, along with a nudge from my gift, and I instantly know when he needs me!”
The women giggled, knowing exactly what the handsome Harry would need with his beautiful wife.
“The maids still fuss about of course, but I can read to myself, undisturbed, with my fleur in much more often, and that’s such a blessing.”
Audrey scoffed. “And have all that metal crisscross my beautiful ceiling?! Well I never!”
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After reading the account of Audrey here, Dave Potter has done some research into the history of St. Brigid’s School for Young Catholic Ladies. ↩
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Or so I thought before reading Emily’s tale, dear Reader, and to be frank I still believe such half-measures are a corruption of our perfect form. Emily and her sister never regained facial expression nor their real voices, and to my mind that would be the whole point. But I am getting ahead of myself. ↩