Chapters Dollhood: A Woman's Choice Book 3 Chapter 26
John’s steady hand held my foot as I sat in my room, gaze locked in the general direction of the Doll stand and it’s damaged phallic massager. I was already feeling the tickle of need growing in the back of my head, making my thoughts drift to John or even sometimes that one fateful night with Althea, as awful as the fallout had been. But even though John assured me he didn’t include any of the aphro-supplements Father had once decreed part of my feed, there would still be no respite from my endless desire until either the device was fixed or John had his way with me, and as of late he seemed to only require my pleasure every week or so, leaving me quite unused.
I tried to tense my foot, keep my leg steady as the pen held between my toes dragged along the drawing pad he had placed on the ground. This was wrong, so wrong! Nanny would have spanked my bottom raw for such improper behaviour! The only respite I held from my surely sinful act was that it was not my own doing. Indeed without a gaze which could look down, and with my leg as weak as it was, the “writing” John was trying to have me practise was purely for his benefit.
The pen fell out from between my toes and I shook a bit in frustration. My feet weren’t made for this! My ankles were almost entirely immobile and my toes had barely had a respite from overly-tight and dainty shoes for years now. Indeed the Patty-Cake Incident had been the last time I had tried to “use” my feet for anything, and for good reason.
John sighed, “You’re being positively difficult, dear! I… I thought we had agreed, we must communicate! Or else you are simply a thing I own with a life entirely separate from mine, and I cannot — I will not! — tolerate that from my wife.”
It would have sounded commanding if not for the shiver in his voice. I moved not a muscle. That had been before! Before my sweet release on our wedding night! Before I learned just how right Dollhood was!
“Hope, I beg of you. If you will not speak, please just tell me what happened to Priscilla, and then I will leave you be.”
No, I couldn’t. They would arrange his expulsion from Imperial if he found out, who knows what else if my passionate husband acted rashly. The well-dressed men in the black caravan had said so when they arrested my companion and escorted me home.
“Lord Kettering is far too busy to reply to my telegrams, his wife the same, and you won’t speak with me. What am I to tell Pris’ father?”
I reminded myself that my mouth wasn’t made for such things anymore, I had been misled by my doubt into thinking I needed to communicate. And yet my lower holes spasmed again and I for a moment I did want to speak, to beg John to use me, fill me, hold my neck firmly like he fancied and ram his manhood deep inside where I could do what I had been designed to!
But the man on his knees in front of me was in despair, and I still felt awful for being unable to assist him in the affairs of commonwomen and men.
The door opened behind me and John hurried to push the writing implements under the chesterfield I was sitting on.
“I have good news, dear boy!” I heard Jack boom behind me, and within moments I was greeted by my father-in-law’s leery glare and my automaid, following along in perfect step as if no betrayal had ever occurred. “Frank finished up just moments ago and I sent him on his way. Seems like the maid had a leak behind her mask which damaged her core clockwork. Makes sense, this inlay being hand-done. Brilliant work, I must say. Alas, her core had to be replaced. Lucky enough you had protocol backups, she’s good as new.”
“They’re not clockwork, Father. It’s not 1850.”
The man made a throaty laugh. “Are you calling me old, boy? Who here knew the man who could fix your precise problem?”
John looked at my blank face petulantly, as his father had no idea what his real problem was.
“Well, what are you doing on your knees there, boy? I didn’t take you for a foot man!” Oh how such casual critiques made my husband leap, as he did to his feet to refute his bully of a father.
“Apologise, maid.” Jack snapped, before my once-trusted carer dipped her head and curtseyed in front of me. “Good, I hope this error has not broken your sense of security, my darling. Now call for Chastity to be sent over, maid, and have the autocar wait. I think a spot of dinner would lighten everyone’s evening.”
I could tell John wanted to decline but it was true, Jack had helped, and for some reason he was behaving very well. Brusque as always, but one had to accept what presents were given.
“I suppose…” my husband muttered, fiddling with the pen still in his hand. We weren’t finished, him and I.
“Marvellous!” the elder Collins smiled, patting his son on the shoulder as they strode out of the room, Jack’s raucous voice still quite audible even as they closed the door and went to John’s study for a drink. “By the way, peeking over Frank’s shoulder I was chuffed to see my son still using the St. Werburgh rulebook for his maid! Surely you’re aware we can change the rules set out for our ladies, spice things up just a tad…”
I was left to my own devices for a while after the men left the room, while I remained to think back on my one maidless day, and the disaster it had been. Priscilla had made a grave misstep, surely, but did she deserve to be detained? Would she be put on trial? What precisely had been her crime? Gross indecency, surely, but in a naive way, was it not?
Oh, the damned questions would never end! Couldn’t the Dollmakers have taken those too?
My maid returned and bent down before me, whilst I sat there quietly, my chest heaving with each shallow breath and my head spinning, as she had noticed my foot left bare by John’s foolhardy experiment. I expected her to replace my dainty lace sock and reimprison it back in my shoe, but instead she removed the other to massage my tired feet. First one, then the other.
Ah, that was nice. It was good to have my servant back.
I thought about it for a moment, sitting there, and remembered what Teacher Eleanor had once said during our Embracing Nothing litanies: “My automaid is my closest friend.” It occurred to me then just how right the good mistress had been. It would be lovely to see my sister Chastity in a bit, we barely crossed paths anymore. Althea was living with Father and Mother at the Hodgkinson Estate, to which I had not returned since John and I left on our honeymoon. The girls at the block social were polite and inclusive, but had not known me before… this.
Yet my maid was the one who awakened me every morning and prepared me for bed at night. She was the one who fed me and moved me, washed my face, applied every brush of makeup, kept my life perfectly on schedule (recent events notwithstanding).
For a Lady to fraternise with her help of lower class would be improper, but for a Doll to befriend the personification of her husband’s rule of law was only right! Indeed this automaton knew more about Dollhood than I did, yet had no mouth to evangelise the purity of her devotion toward the protocols which defined her. I had no name for my closest friend, save for the elaborate golden H and the sculpted faceplate set upon her head.
Was such a pure connection all because of a backroom deal between the King’s government and a great titan of industry? Surely they knew how to run a whole country better than a single fizzicist, and a woman at that? Pris had erupted at Lady Kettering upon hearing about the automaids becoming more common, and that part still confused me. What could be the issue with an arrangement or a plan that allowed for such a high level of care for Dolls like me? For Ladies? For everyday women across the Kingdom? Why wouldn’t they want that ‘closest friend’ if they had the opportunity?
The whole lot of it was beyond me at that age, and all I wanted to do was enjoy the doting from my returned automaid, which luckily she was obliged to provide.
After paying some much needed attention to both feet and the unused muscles in my locked shoulders and neck, the maid ‘looked’ at the doll stand, her smooth monogrammed mask as unrevealing as ever to the machinations within, as if remembering her own misdeeds just yesterday. After rising to inspect the damaged device, the phallic probe’s satin finish worn not so badly to render it unusable, but surely not advisable to put back inside my body and break down further, she returned and knelt before me again. This was odd, was she going to massage me again?
Oh heavens no! Was she on another unbreakable loop?!
Thankfully not, as instead my dutiful servant slipped a hand under my dress and gently touched (ah!) my ever-swollen clitoris with her soft plastic fingers. Wait a moment, I thought, no maid had ever stimulated me directly! And yet here she was, starting to move her cool fingers, to caress and touch in slow methodical circles about my special button, and with each calculated little movement, my concerns over the irregularity of the situation blurred and faded away, just as they should. She dipped one fingertip inside me just enough to wet it, just enough to remind me what it felt like, before continuing a gentle, teasing stroking. I squirmed my legs in both delight and agonizing desire, but the maid merely pried them back open and indicated with her iron grip I should not move.
“Yes, Madame,” I recited to myself as though the Head Teacher were watching over me now. Proper form, as always. Luckily, my Dollhood made this request very easy, as above the waist my reaction to this unexpected stimulation and excitement was merely a quickening of breath and a glow to my cheeks, along with a markedly increased flow of lubricant behind my gag, though only I had the pleasure of tasting that sweet, tangy substance. Below, my training was almost enough to keep my legs from shaking in pleasure, yet with my feet luxuriously unbound I relished in gripping the carpet with my toes as a common girl might’ve with her hands, holding on for dear life. Inevitably I felt a routine pulse and vibration, and my imagination strayed to the occupier filling my arse and to the thought of its identical twin, John’s erect cock. I swallowed the excess saliva reflexively and blinked. Noticing this, my maid’s free hand pressed the valve on my gag, releasing the pressure which had plugged my tight, inviting mouth-hole all day. She set it aside precisely, and inserted two of her plastic fingers between my parted lips, sending the muscles inside aflutter as they tightened and suckled at the stale-tasting digits.
All the while I was beginning to grow flush by this treatment, possibly the least passionate pleasuring I had ever received and yet my Doll body responded regardlessly, eagerly without question, licking the plastic fingers, dragging my tongue, tensing each set of muscles my mouth now sported from front to back, coaxing the fingers deeper before the back of my tongue and my palate began to vibrate. Excess saliva escaped past the tight pucker of my lips and dripped from my chin to the open bosom below, meanwhile my lower holes surely leaked torrentially, eliciting the sweetest of sensations from my maid’s slippery fingers. Still the delicate and lovely assault continued until the warmth built up in my hips, my breath was ragged and I felt every inch of my stays constricting, insulating that heat, before the tenseness deep inside grew, and with a flood my climax burst forth, my thighs tensed slightly, the gusts from my fleur-de-cou stopped. I felt like screaming out but the room remained still, the strings removed from my harp long ago.
My maid removed her fingers with a soft, perfunctory pop of suction and my spring jaw closed again with nothing to fill the emptiness inside, my face completely unaware its possessor had just orgasmed with great intensity save for a mess of spittle dripping from my lips and chin, curious why we couldn’t have another go.
It seemed this was the procedure for a good Doll’s head-clearing relief if their appliances intended for such were out of commission. Or was this an apology? Indeed I couldn’t complain.
After wiping her messy fingers with a spare handkerchief, cleaning my face and bosom, reseating my feet in their heels, and reinflating the gag just behind my lips, I was risen to standing and led to my armoire and vanity to be prepared for a night out in the city, legs shaky, quite securely in the afterglow of such lovely treatment. Whilst my maid refreshed my lipstick and fragrance, inserted new dissolving pessaries, my mind couldn’t help but wander, though.
I was being taken care of, safe and sound, here in my proper place, but where was Priscilla at this very moment? Was she in a jail? Sitting before an inspector’s desk? Or perhaps somewhere worse which I had not the worldly imagination to fathom?
The men in black had been so courteous, walking me home, opening the door and leading me to rest in the safety of my room. And yet Priscilla had reacted so improperly to another serviceman’s request for her information, struggled so fiercely even against the meagre monoglove and gag the Kettering residence had gifted her, even as they put her in their black van and drove off to God-knows-where. Admittedly, my escort had allowed himself to feel the firmness of my breast whilst I could say not a word of the matter, but he had also taken time out of his important schedule to assure my safe return to our now-empty flat!
And then threatened me not to reveal the whole affair.
Why did men make it so difficult to think them infallible and trustworthy as I had been taught?
I wondered at the time what neighbourhood watch this must have been — likely some fancy service for the London well-to-do, I surmised — though now I know full well it was none other than the King’s unspeakables, His Majesty’s Security Service.
I found myself wondering after Priscilla’s well-being for much of the night, even as Chastity arrived, quite docile and well-behaved since tying the knot, surprisingly dressed in my precise outfit, one of several dresses Father had bought us after graduation that he found easier to just tell the seamstress to make two of. She made no apologies or curtseys, looking just past me at the wall as I did the same.
Hello, dear sister.
“A fashion emergency, my dears!” Jack roared jovially, holding firmly onto mine and my sister’s bare armless shoulders, making the sensitive plastiskin tickle and my lower holes tighten unconsciously, flush and ready yet again. “Maids, won’t you go and fix these fine Collins women so they actually match; hair, makeup, the works! I feel like drinking enough to see double tonight. What do you say, boy?”
John had that same expression he always had with his father, that of holy pain and persecution, but he only nodded in agreement, much too distracted to care. Thus the pattern of complete domination by the elder man was upheld, and I was given the opportunity to show John’s home to Chastity, of which she had little to say, staring at whichever brushed landscape, dollhood appliance, untouched bookcase, or tasteful wallpaper lay directly in front of her, teetering right behind me as I glided with great struggle (all hidden by our well-trained grace, of course). I could not fool myself though, we were making the motions, my freshly-reinstated maid guiding me from room to room, and silently gesturing at this or that expensive heirloom as if a hostess were reciting each entire storied history, though the only noise was the quiet whirr of her motors and the echo of men talking back in the foyer.
Chastity was gracious and patient as “I” gave her the grand tour of a flat much smaller than hers. Remarkably well-behaved. What had my father-in-law done to tame my sister from the muted anguish I had seen at the chapel all those months ago, I could only wonder…
When we eventually stepped back into the foyer, having ended our tour in my dressing room with a thorough scan through my armoire and wardrobe for the right accessories, prepared to the exacting standard of a mirror, my simple gag upgraded to a proper fleur-de-bouche blooming from my mouth, with even my shoes replaced with ones far tighter to match my sister’s footwear, Jack just burst out laughing, “Now that’s remarkable, what a beautiful dessert we have here! Just delectable! I can’t even tell which cake I left my icing inside last night!”
John glared at this latest dollop of crudeness before he donned his jacket and turned to the door. His whole body and demeanour announced to the room, “Let’s get this over with, then.”
“BOY! What has come over my well-mannered son?! Walk your wife to the carriage, they are ours to treat with respect!” He said this even as I noticed his hand wrapped around my sister for support, yet firmly cradling his wife’s breast. Like the watchman had held me today. She of course stepped dutifully along with him out the door, onto the city street at his brisk pace.
He hadn’t changed a lick since using me in the garden last year. Not a lick. And Chas was all his to do with as he willed. Poor sister…
I stared out the front door, held open by our autobutler, awash with the memories of our wedding, of the garden I was used— no, raped in. Such a dirty word, another one of Althea’s breadcrumbs.
“Escape.”
The word rang through my head like an unwelcome guest as I waited for John to come hold me, a vagabond concept I hadn’t spotted betwixt my ears since our wedding and the many joys that came afterward. And yet I had just been outside earlier today, why was the door calling to me so? It seemed to only do so when I found myself unhappy, unresolved, unsatisfied; when I let my mind stray to the recurring fantasies Althea strung up in my imagination. But why was I suddenly uncontent, even now that the automaid incident had been all but resolved, when even my persistent carnal needs were being paid attention to?
This was wrong! These were thoughts of mine from before I made the conscious decision to enjoy my new life. Before I decided to be his perfect Doll wife, like St. Werburgh’s had taught me to be; like they had granted me the tools to be. Before I came to the resolution that questions and worry and thought had been the true culprits as to why the intervening months in Reading had been as awful as they were. Before I decided I didn’t want to make that mistake again, to live in constant self-doubt in this new house.
And yet I could see my husband there in the periphery, sulking even whilst he re-tied one of his shoelaces. My act of silence and restraint to proper form was draining the light out of him. Now, dear Reader, I was never taught the old bunny-ear method, nor really any method. Nanny had always tied my shoes, even whilst I still had free and innocent hands. But for some reason I suddenly wanted to tie his shoes, to kneel in front of him and assist him with something, as if such a gesture would show him where my heart lay, would wipe away my obstructions. This inability to make one foolish little gesture made me so intensely sorrowful all of a sudden, that I started to cry.
Not cry, really, you already know we Dolls can’t partake in such shows of emotion, but for my eyes to blur and my breath to hitch in quiet sobs that fluttered my fleur-de-cou, that sorrow had me in its grips. Every repressed desire for my lost independence burst forth into me, making not a lick of difference to my environs, my paroxysm of despair entirely contained behind these ever-surprised and eager eyes that peered over the flower erupting from my mouth, toward the blurry twilight void of that open door.
I stepped out of line, weakly edging away from my maid, who thankfully let me tiptoe toward him, unable to wail as I truly wanted, and yet he noticed, the good man noticed me. “Hope? Oh dear, you’re so excited! Whatever is the matter?” I could not tell him like this. “Do not fret, it’s going to be okay.” He held me with both hands on my featureless, feminine shoulders, and I felt his warmth.
Standing there, close, wishing I could look up at him instead of staring at his chest, I was flexing my thigh desperately to try and say I needed to speak, to say I needed the letterboard from where it lay discarded in my room. But I had also been denying his efforts to communicate for weeks now: hidden under my elaborate pink dress he didn’t notice my signals in the slightest, whilst he made those puppy-dog eyes of pure care and empathy down at my blank face, inspecting me for traces of my internal struggle which he should have known he would not find there.
“Hope, it’s just one dinner with him, and your sister is here, isn’t that grand?”
He sounded like he was trying to pep himself more than me, and it wasn’t very convincing for either of us.
He sighed, “It’s going to be alright. Or… or is this about something else. Is… is it about Pris?”
No, no! It was about everything! It was all wrong, I had messed it all up! I was a worthless object in my lover’s eyes, that’s why he was mad, why he didn’t even use me with frequency, why I needed a machine to give my dirty female mind it’s prescribed release! And this object had endangered his friend by her very existence, the friend he had a real relationship with! Oh, I had been so wrong to shun him, I should have known better!
But yes, first I needed to tell him the truth, tell him the gentlemen in black took her, tell him that Lady Annette had called for Priscilla and I to be escorted home at the end of our social, tell him she had whispered something else to the man, tell him that his best friend (sob) Pris was–
“Oi! Johnny boy! Get yourself and your sweet little lady out here, I’m famished!”
It was enough of a whip-crack to distract my man, who confirmed we were almost ready at the top of his lungs, and looked back at me but for a moment before sighing, kissing my forehead, and resuming our departure. My coat was put on over top of me, my flexing thigh hidden under yet another layer, and my husband led me out to the waiting autocar with his arm around me, holding me close the whole way to a place Jack called ‘Rules.’
We were given a square table in a dimly-lit restaurant of gold and amber, and my sister and I were sat crosswise so we could properly enjoy each other’s company as Dolls should, silently staring at the blank faces our makers had left us with, in this case akin to being sat before a mirror. Our men pushed our chairs in and then took the other two seats and ordered some drinks, an ale for Jack and a ‘John Collins with gin’ for, well, John Collins.
Alas, whilst performing the act of a proper doll wife, listening to Jack berate my husband for his choice of bubbly, effeminate drinks, my mind was still reeling guiltily as it had been since we left home. I resolved to tell him everything the next time the chance befell us.
Meanwhile, I was distracted by the sudden sense that everyone in the restaurant was staring at us, more precisely at Chastity and I. It’s not as if we could look around to check, but I did see one man behind Chas who couldn’t keep his eyes on the wife he was spoon-feeding, who herself looked as though she would have struck him with one of the arms pinned behind her back if she could have…
It was not wholly unsurprising, as going out for drinks and dinner was more of a man’s pastime in the Society. Boys went to prep school and fine colleges, they may even live in dormitories as I had, but they could stroll down to the shops or the pub as they pleased. Dolls were largely left at home unless a proper ball or banquet were happening, or it happened to be a personal call to another’s home, a home with the amenities required for a Lady, as most were these days but not all.
Indeed, the only reason I was allowed to walk to my afternoon tea appointment was due to our neighbourhood being so posh, and the Kettering residence being so close, otherwise Society rules dictated a human chaperone and autocar at all times, with minimal exposure to the elements. Such restrictions caused us Dolls to be a rare breed in public. There may have been a few guided strolls down highstreets here and there, a group visit to Laydon’s or the Parlour, but seamstresses and corsetieres largely made house calls, or John would use the telephone in his pocket in some unknown method to expedite the process. Our mother was a perfect example of this life in-of-doors.
Dear Reader, we Dolls were ‘homemakers,’ as the Society diction stated, building off long-standing Leisurely tenets. We made a house a home by our very presence, and should largely remain there when not being put on display by our husbands, as we were now.
That said, it surprised me to find so many Ladies here, with either their maids or their men feeding them fine wines and delicacies — in petite portions, of course. They did not seem to have the same restrictions as us Dolls, as the bound Ladies had become so commonplace that their very presence did not cause a stirring in the entire restaurant, for they themselves were a large portion of the restaurant, and to leave such fine folk at home would not only mean losing out on business, but coming home to many a question from those swaddled girls who had nothing to do but wonder what their men were up to all night.
The second reason we were rarely spotted at these establishments was our refined way of eating; hands-free, low-maintenance. The large objects which we suckled and massaged our sustenance from, all on our own, were similarly foreign to the public, and caused our mouths to emit such noise that Father and many other men ate before or separately from their girls. Indeed, I had not partaken in any of the refreshments at the earlier tea date, performing such ‘refuellings’ in public would be quite improper.
John noticed this and politely asked the waiter, “Uhm sir… in addition to my salmon and the steak for my father, I… I wonder if you may have some selections for our Ladies here.”
The waiter hesitated. I couldn’t see his face standing to my side, but his voice made it clear how hard he was straining to not make an improper glance down at my bosom, pushed up by the cups of my stays. “My apologies sir, we do not have the equipment to provide meals for Doll Society… uh… ladies.”
Jack interjected, “Now that’s just bollocks, mind my tongue…” He pulled a banknote, I have no clue how much or indeed which colour is which, and handed it to the waiter. “Good lad, your saucier will concoct or blend a selection of five liquid treats for our little women here, each delicacy prepared on two tea spoons for the ease of feeding, and we expect that ten minutes before our main course, no later.”
The waiter nodded, affirming eagerly. It must have been a large sum.
“And one last thing, I expect not to need to explain this next time I bring my wife to your establishment. That is all.” I heard the waiter’s footsteps trail away and the din of the dining room came back into focus.
I was stunned, and so was John. “That’s quite gentlemanly of you, Father.”
“Well they’re just sitting here, might as well give them something nice to suckle on whilst I imagine I’m the spoon.”
John popped a smile. A real one. I thought I must be dreaming. “You’re incorrigible.”
“Well you don’t hear these two cracking jokes! Nor those two charging their cells in the back, such troublesome units.”
A swish of ale and gin followed in each’s hands as I stared at Chas and she stared right back.
“A faulty seal, can you believe it? That’s all it took! I bet you the same damn shoddy linesman likely affixed both. I say, for Alan to get his daughters’ servants tailor-made masks, what’s the point? These old money types might as well tip their hearths for good service. I’m having our dollmaid checked tomorrow. If there’s a single flaw it’s to the fires of hell with that one, I will not risk harm upon my girlie here.” I saw Chas shake just a tad at that, but remained still.
John was taken aback but agreed, “I think… that’s very proactive.” He paused in contemplation, swirling his glass. “T-to think… a single drop of water could send my wife’s day reeling towards abandonment, sending our lives to t-t-total disarray…”
Jack glanced up from his pint. “Eh? Surely your pops saved the day?”
John paused, sighed, finished his glass. “It’s Priscilla…”
“The treat from Imperial I keep spotting you with?”
John nodded, unable to bring himself to explain her sudden disappearance and how it pained him, and Jack being Jack, he just laughed and smiled knowingly.
“My boy… an active mind breeds an active bed, I see!” John balked at the assumption of infidelity, but Jack kept on, “Y’know it’s a proper shame you’re married already, son. She would make for an excellent blank to mould as you like. Smart! Smart enough to know when she’s been had. Pretty enough. Prettier after she heads to Werburgh’s. No, my mistake, too old. Sant Isfael’s in Wales, I heard Alan sent the girls’ mum there a while back, on Chittenham’s dime, and you’ve seen that peach, o’course!”
I was sitting right here! Part of me couldn’t believe he would make such a remark, proposing my alternative as though I had been an unlucky draw. The other part of me, who had joined Jack in the garden, who wanted dearly to talk to my husband at the earliest opportunity; well she was entirely unsurprised.
Every ounce of short-lived levity had flown from John’s demeanour as the waiters brought the men’s first course, he bit his tongue and then hushed, “Against… her will, like that? Pris? I would never! I mean how could you even speak of putting someone so bright into this…” John looked at me and drifted off, suddenly very aware of where that hypothetical was heading, as was I.
The two Collins men were quite a pair, I must’ve thought at the time, unable to self-correct my potent frustration.
John cleared his throat and continued, “That would be an entirely ridiculous proposition. Lady C-C-Cushions wanted this, H-Hope and Chastity submitted wilfully to their dollification at Saint, uhm… Werburgh’s. Believe me, I’ve pored over every page looking for a legal avenue for reversal, I know it to be true. Priscilla… she wouldn’t want any part in such a life. Getting her to even take care of Hope was like pulling teeth, nevermind this!”
Mouth half full, Jack guffawed, “You think every Doll strolls onto that assembly line at Great Ormond Street with a smile, boy?”
“I… I don’t know? Of course! They both seem so mild-mannered, and Hope quite enjoys herself when we…”
“HA! Oh I bet she does!!” Jack laughed, slapping my breast playfully. John seemed offended but realised he had walked right into that one.
“Wait… are… are you saying? That—”
“That a not-insignificant sum of Dolls in England have either been entrapped or never given the choice over their involvement in the Society? Don’t be silly, boy! Of course! It was much the same in the early days of the Leisurely lifestyle over a century ago now. Your mum, rest her soul, was an ardent supporter of the lifestyle even before I met her, and she herself told me that snippet! ‘It’s necessary for any movement to get on its feet,’ she once said to me.”
He tsked and held up his glass. “I do miss that woman.”
I saw Chas shift at the mention of her predecessor, but nothing more.
John was stricken, taking a large swig of his second drink, looking at us girls sitting prettily, seemingly unaware of this revelation. Oh, I was aware. I had suspected it since my time with the sponsored girls at St. Werburgh’s, talking with Vanessa specifically. She had never unduly revealed her own forced involvement but her demeanour spoke volumes. I seem to remember her being at my wedding, along with her husband, who had decreed she receive a hearty smile at the lips and raised brows on her now-plastiskin face, to make up for the taciturn girl inside. As a Doll she behaved much like the rest of us, of course. How much despair can a pair of legs communicate?
Jack coughed on his drink and cleared his throat. “Now our girls are different, Alan did a fine job of raising two dutiful daughters who eagerly begged their headmaster to sign away their womanly rights, I heard they even kissed their surgeon in thanks!” He laughed and snapped at the waiter for a refill.
The way he was spinning our lives for John’s consolation twisted my stomach into a knot. Perhaps Chastity had been happy to do such things but I had not! Oh dear, I had almost forgotten how sick with indecision and disillusionment I had been back then, over a year ago now, two even. So much had happened since!
John looked at his Doll and brushed my cheek with his thumb, and I leaned just slightly over into his touch, a flurry of spasms below triggered by such a sincere gesture. He smiled guiltily. “Yes, Hope is… devout in her practice, I know it. She has b-been quite ardent about maintaining ‘perfect form’ as the school handbook calls it… even… against my wishes.”
Jack looked at his son sharply. “What do you mean to say?”
“I mean she has decided it best she maintains her Dollhood in every sense of the word. This little lean is the most I’ve gotten from her… in quite some time. Well, uhm, save for the incident yesterday of course. And oh how refreshing it was, even under such circumstances. But the truth is, I’ve been trying to get her to speak to me. To engage as a real wife should!”
“By God, why would you do such a thing?! And why is it up to her?!” He hushed and leaned into the table, eyes dashing about. “Do you want the full wrath of the Society down upon us? If Alan or another Societyman were here tonight, listening to this, our girls would be recollected into ‘more responsible’ hands before you or I could say squat! I worked hard for this arrangement and you want to just throw it away?”
“Not to worry, Father. As I said, she has upkept her education like a model Doll should,” he laced with sarcasm, quite unlike him. “Signals, boards, pens and paper, it’s all useless. I… normally wouldn’t speak of such a thing with you, but I’m at my wit’s end! I’ve been trying to get Priscilla’s whereabouts out of her all afternoon. They went to tea together and when I arrived home from Imperial, Pris was nowhere to be found…”
Jack leaned back. “Serves you right, boy. And what a good girl you are, Hope, for keeping my son in line! I wish I could reward you properly for such fine behaviour!” He reached for my chest yet again, but—
“Easy with my wife, Father!” John flared, for what seemed like the first time ever. The room came to a halt, and John realised he was standing, fists white as they clutched his serviette. He wilted at the attention and fell back in his chair, and the good men and women of London returned to their meals and conversations.
Jack was still restrained, hushed, unimpressed with his son. “Easy yourself, boy, or I’ll tell Frank to come back and rubbish your dollkeeper’s head, and you’ll be having no quids from me to buy a replacement! Who do you think pays for ‘your wife’?!”
A silence reigned between the two which rivaled mine and Chastity’s.
Once another round of drinks had been poured, the two reconciled and discussed what facts John knew, and Jack took on a more conciliatory tone “Look, I’m sure she is fine, maybe her plans changed. You know how unmoored women can be.”
Indeed, unmoored was the right term, I thought as we sat in the carriage on the way home. After her performance at the Ketterings’ she had been taken by tides quite out of her control, yet I found myself still worried about her. She had been brash, yes, but this was all my fault. With a simple voice I could have told her not to test the Lady. With two free arms I would not have needed a chaperone!
I sat across from John who looked glum as ever, still tasting the essence of blackberry compote upon my short tongue, a treat to be sure but one I now felt I hardly deserved, Jack’s praise of my good behaviour hardly making up for my complicity in a woman’s disappearance today. It mattered not whether I actually liked the woman I saw as a likely temptress of the man across from me, with her wits and -isms aplenty; she didn’t deserve her treatment today, not one bit. I blinked dumbly toward my good husband, hoping my delayed information could help once we were dropped at home by the drunkard in the other seat, Jack Sr.
It turns out I would never get the chance.
John’s eyes lit up once we arrived at our block in Kensington and home appeared in his view. I could not turn my head, nor turn my gaze to follow his, but he had his eyes locked on something by our front door as we pulled up, and before the autocarriage had even stopped he alighted, running to our terrace.
“Priscilla!!!!”
It took our maids getting us upright on the pavement before I saw her, a blurry mass, cowering on our front step. Jack ran ahead to open the door as John carried her inside, but we did not immediately follow. I felt a touch at my neck and my locket being re-adjusted well below my locked eyesight, the blooming flower blocking most of it. A few adjustments to my hair followed, whilst I begged time itself to move faster. Only then did our maids ferry us inside, so we could see what mess had been wrought.
I immediately regretted every jealous thought I had ever held of Priscilla when I saw her sitting on the chesterfield in our small drawing room, for she had been treated terribly; her plain dress torn, her hair in disarray, makeup running down her cheeks and spittle dried around her overinflated gag. She was still wearing the same simple leather monoglove the Ketterings’ staff had bound her with, but John was busy inspecting something else, a gold choker wrapped around her neck.
Pris looked at Chas and I when we entered, back and forth, obviously shocked by our identical appearance, then at our lockets to discern who was who. Then she remembered she was still gagged and bound, and had a mini tantrum there on the seat to tell John to remove the infernal wares. He did, but once she was free her tired hands flew to her neck. The thin collar would not budge, and she could not utter a sound.
“Hold on, don’t touch it.” Jack advised before stepping in to get a better view. “Don’t mess with it. This is a Songbird, or that’s what we called ‘em when I was in the Forces. Well, it looked different then, not as flashy, but we put ‘em on prisoners so they couldn’t be getting chatty together. These were dangerous folk you see, homegrown cells, most with Bolshevik affections and funding, trying to destabilise His Majesty’s government…”
It reminded me of the bracelets I wore in my youth, the ones that numbed my hands after I was put to bed, and once I focused on my periphery more I realised she was also wearing those too, the same thin golden decorations.
“Why are they called Songbirds?” John asked his Father, peering at her wrists.
“You’re much too young for this, boy. Even before my time, before the trains of coal and the soot that followed, the King’s country was full of birdsong, you hear it mentioned in Shakespeare and the like. Well, the world has changed. The pea-soupers are long gone but the birds that sing haven’t returned, don’t ask me why. I expect it was named thus in a fair bit of jest… Don’t tamper with it, without the code all three are quite unremovable, without lasting damage.”
Priscilla was crying again, screaming out loud in heavy, silent breaths. I felt for her in that moment, I really did. It reminded me of my first moments as a Doll, as if I needed any more reminders today.
Seeing as Priscilla was unable to name her abductors, I committed myself to action, to help. I tried to strut toward John as I had in the foyer earlier, but my maid held me in place this time, her handle on my waist quite foolhardy to think escapable. Chastity and I could only stand there, held upright by our maids behind us.
Pris gestured for a notepad, a pen, and Jack went to fetch some.
She sneezed audibly then reached out for the pen and paper. These objects she held fine, but once the pen met the paper with her intent of writing, her hands seemed to write mere gibberish. She looked at the inky trail of meaningless cursive with shocked silence, before she dropped the implements and held herself, her traitorous wrists, and cried with renewed terror.
Jack tried to get her to make symbols with her hands. That failed.
John retrieved the letterboard he had slipped under the sofa in my room and had her point at each one, and though we thought this was working at first, she was shaking her head with tears as they went on, the songbird somehow making her pointing hands go limp as she tried to construct even her first word. How it did this, no one knew. Indeed both men had never seen such technology, Jack having only experienced the muting system.
We couldn’t know what Priscilla had gone through that day. John started to discuss options, levels of communication that were slow but might circumvent the system, methods he had devised for me, and it did seem that nodding or shaking the head worked fine, but Priscilla was much too tired and distraught to try looking or blinking, or any of the more tedious methods. It seemed yes and no would have to suffice for the time being.
After a while of sitting and staring at the ornate parquet floors, trying to speak or hum, beating her torn dress in frustration, Priscilla looked up at Chastity with intensity, shed her broken heels, and crossed the room to where we were being stood in diligent waiting to embrace her as though there was no tomorrow!
I was left entirely confused, as Pris then pulled back and looked intently into my sister’s eyes as if to say, “I’m sorry, I understand now.”
“Oh Hope, how grand!” John elated. “I thought you two would never see eye to eye.”
Wait.
What?
They were all looking at Chastity as he said this, and surely Priscilla would have no reason to hug my sister, whom she had never met before?
John approached the two and brought them both into a firm embrace, telling both he was “sorry, so sorry.” He of course had no idea that Lady Kettering had called the watch on her, this fact was locked behind our now-shared muteness, but he still felt guilty for putting her in whichever unknown position had caused this as-yet-untold series of events, which indeed he had.
Many tears were shed from the two as my sister just stood there in the embrace, stock-still, breasts getting pressed, emotionlessly staring at Pris’ cheek or something.
I was a few feet over, being held in place by my maid, her hands an unbreakable clamp about my waist… or was it truly mine behind me? For the maid which had held Chas had her mask obscured to my foggy periphery. I begged my eyes to look over, to let me see that mask, or indeed the locket and effective nametag my sister was wearing, but they refused of course, blinking and ogling a nearby lamp.
Wait, if they think Chas is me, then—
I felt an arm roughly wrap around my shell of a corseted waist, a large hand resting on my larger rear through the pink dress, and even without the ability to look over I immediately knew Jack Senior was holding me close to him and his portly frame. “Isn’t that a lovely sight, dear? You know I almost thought we might find the poor lass in the Thames, but for your sister being delivered home safely, how strange! What a mystery!”
As if I needed further confirmation this waking nightmare was real, I felt his hand grope my curvy rear even tighter, rougher than he would dare touch his daughter-in-law in front of his son and a guest, and his beer-soaked breath cascaded across my neck as he whispered in my ear,
“We’ll count our blessings tonight, won’t we, love?”