Chapters Dollhood: A Woman's Choice Book 4 Chapter 38
November 2050
Winter in London always felt colder than in the countryside. The trim hedges and trees lining the winding streets did little to buffer the corralled wind, blustering down the row.
My feet trembled and shook, ankles afire as I ascended the few measly steps from the pavement to our cream-white townhome; heels clicking differently from concrete to granite to finally the marble landing. My breasts rose and fell, asunder as I laboured every too-frigid breath through the hole in my neck.1 Even just the adventure of this special secret appointment to the Restoration Centre imparted an aching impression that I hadn’t been home in ages, and it was a happy sight to see our piano-black door yet again, even if it remained hazy through my veil. That same door which had once called to me to ‘escape’ now beckoned me inside, a symbol of sanctuary and relief; and seeing it again meant that our excursion was over and I could return to my proper place as a fixture in the home. It meant that I could once again feel safe doing so, having taken some necessary steps toward a Dollhood on my terms. It also meant perhaps I could get my husband alone to myself, and provide that relief in kind!
Whether he was imagining our coming night together, or simply appreciating the successful progress led by Mr. Rivers; I could just faintly feel the smile John held in his visage and his step as he opened the door and guided me into his home, our safe space, a careful hand on the bustle of my dress and the leash grip hidden there— Only for a familiar voice to echo down the modest foyer.
“John! How are you doing, son? I hope you don’t mind, your maid let me in.” I shook in surprise, our ounce of peace dissolved in a split second.
“M-m-mister Hodgkinson!” John stuttered. The smile in his voice vanished and the strong hand guiding me at my back transfigured into a nervous grip, holding on for dear life, even as I heard a stamp somewhere unseen from our disgruntled ‘maid’.
“Now, John, what have I told you about calling me that? It’s Alan… or ‘Pappa’ to this little one.”
A figure approached, stooping as two hands lifted my veil, and sure enough: standing before me was my ‘Pappa’ with his gentle eyes and smile, far more composed and sober than our last encounter.
You recall: when he admitted my Mummy was no longer herself, fondled my breast, and succumbed to, then rejected, my eager sex with a kiss of apology for but a fraction of his failings. Yes, dear Reader, that encounter!
My breath hitched and fluttered at my fleur-de-cou, but he thought nothing of it. As far as he was concerned, that intoxicated tryst-of-sorts had been with Chastity, and so he admired my identically blank stare and pout with fatherly love of a platonic nature I could no longer fully trust. Yet I couldn’t help but feel that childish swell of joy to be the sole subject of his attentions, and to some degree I revelled in the way he looked upon me through his spectacles, stooped down, winking, touching my nose, admiring how I scarcely flinched. He still saw me as his innocent little girl, Hope untarnished; whilst when I had been Chastity — the doll to whom he had entrusted his shame in the belief it would die with her — he had been too sheepish to even wish me good tidings before I was ferried off to true objecthood.
I shuddered at the precipice I had avoided so barely, and leaned toward John, my saviour, but ‘Pappa’ held my armless shoulders steady with those strong warm hands I loathed to enjoy, a tingle of phantom sensations being washed away by my instinctive reaction to his touch: flushness and a rush of wanton ideas. “Oh don’t catch a chill, dear! Where is your muff? The mink one I gave you, do you still have it? What errands have you two youngins traipsing around the city on such a dreary day?”
Under the pleasantry, the question held a bite I had not heard in Father’s voice in a long while; it was a critique, a question of responsibility. Why was John bringing his delicate wife outside on a windy winter day? Where had we been that required the privacy of a veil? Why was my husband shivering when the door was closed behind us and the cold no longer at our backs?
Father wouldn’t like the answer, not one bit, but he had to learn some sorry part of it: the swapping of us Dolls, at least. I had wanted to tell him for so long how I was abducted, lied to, abused. Would John tell him for me? Unlike the business with Mr. Rivers, we hadn’t had time to plan this in the slightest.
“I-I-I… yes, sir— Alan, I mean. What brings you into the city proper?”
Father ceased toying with me and stood tall, only to let out a weary sigh. “The same as always; business. Alas, the bank does not run itself.”
“I s-suppose not. Can I offer you a—”
“Yes indeed,” Father replied, curtly, clearly feigning politeness for my sake.
Even so, John kept me around as he led Father to his study, quite the contrast to Father’s private domain at the Estate. Here the well-stacked shelves were not merely wall decoration: half the books were askew or off the wall entirely, stacked in small teetering towers with labels and notes sprouting from them like feathers. Upon John’s desk rested a gleaming metal armature, which looked almost frighteningly gothic and irregular. A part of my husband’s anbaric machine, surely; but what Doll could ask, nevermind comprehend the answer? I was set down behind it, upon John’s leather chair — for most of the other seats held stacks of paper and literature, especially Priscilla’s reading nook in the corner which looked overgrown with research in colour-coded stacks. It felt like an esteemed place for a doll, but I assure you my rear had more padding than the creaky thing.
John poured spirits and Father inspected the state of the place. “The bank is one matter, but I must admit, I didn’t expect for the running of my son-in-law’s household to grow just as complex an enterprise as to need my direct involvement.”
“But you don’t—”
“Clearly I do.” Father turned, impatiently eyeing the decanter, as John poured faster. “A family man of means, one with no son of his own to pass his legacy onto; he has many responsibilities in this day and age. He is alone in bearing them, until one special day, when his girls are of age.”
He stepped over to the armature and gestured to prod it with a knuckle. Peering behind the device at me and my dress overflowing comically from the masculine seat, he flashed a quick smile I later interpreted as, “Sorry dear, the men are about to get quarrelsome,” before turning to continue:
“Now, I believed that, on that special day, I had delegated my most precious of those responsibilities properly— I believed that I had brought two stewards into the family, but here I am; settling a squabble between father and son!”
John stood abruptly, libations in hand, entirely unprepared for this onslaught. “Alan—”
“No, I think ‘Sir’ is more appropriate, indeed.” Father took the glass, downed the amber liquor and used the same hand to point exasperatedly at John, right in his face. Unlike me, he did flinch, as my father’s good nature ran dry in an instant. “You think yourself a saviour, do you? Was one of my daughters not enough for you, son? What right do you have to abduct Chastity from her home?”
“I d-didn’t…” he stammered, trying to find his words. John had been growing so confident these last few weeks, standing tall as Priscilla and I leaned on him for support, but Father was seething with the same energy as his critique of me in the hall at the Estate: he had kept decorum long enough, bottled his thoughts up, but now he would be heard.
“Do you think I enjoyed that garish display, Jack remaking your mother? It was unconscionable, and the man will reap what he has sown— putting such crass indecency on display in that ballroom… especially right as our Society is at its most critical juncture in the public eye! Bah! That is the kind of design you dedicate to your wife’s companion, or a private ward out of sight, it is… unconscionable, but Chastity is his by marriage and that is Society Rule.”
“I t-think if you see—” John tried to get a word in, but Father wouldn’t let him.
I wanted to help him, but I couldn’t. I shouldn’t.
“Now I’ve stayed out of this affair, trusting you two Collins boys would come to your senses. Even after your own garish display, endangering my girl with that crash— just like your Father, you are— I made excuse after excuse for you, son, because I knew you once to have a light hand and take good care, and you’re a sharp lad, but now— the gall!” Father was furious now, not even hiding it for my sake. “Now I receive word from the head secretary’s office that you have been seen visiting Damsels?! That house of high and mighty do-good Christian meddlers? With my daughter?!”
“Sir, I’m t-t-trying to save—” he begged.
I knew I shouldn’t make a fuss, but he needed me.
“—Save!? How!? I haven’t even seen a proper maid since I arrived, and don’t you dare count the charity case out there! I gave you a well-maintained automaid, trained off the very woman who raised these girls, yet where is it? All this rash irresponsibility makes me second-guess my judgement of you, son. You’re lucky I don’t take Hope back home with me now— No, I won’t, it would be the same crime as your larceny here— but this little experiment in polygamy or whathaveyou has long outrun in its course. I am here to take Chastity back to Jack, and he will—”
“No, thank you!” An innocent little voice tweeted and chirped from the gag in my mouth.
Father turned to look at me, aghast, as I sat otherwise docile and pretty behind John’s lean, functional bureau plat desk, staring at nothing. He second-guessed his own ears, eyeing my fleur-de-bouche — or at least eyeing the full-bloomed violet covering the speaker grille inside, belying its true nature.
“Was that…” Father stopped mid-sentence, dumbstruck, unable to even fathom that I had just spoken for myself. “Hope?”
I hadn’t wanted to reveal this so soon, or in such impromptu fashion, but the men had been yelling… and I felt so helpless again… and the words just coalesced and… and blurted out! Even if they weren’t quite right.
It was a far cry from my old voice, and just as Mr. Rivers and Dr. Hawthorne had informed me that morning as I arose from the recovery bed and spoke my first sentence in years — complete nonsense, really — the implant would take a great deal of practice. Focus and calm were essential to resolve the correct thoughts to be spoken aloud, and neither of those I held in any significant capacity with John and Father fighting over me. Yet I had to try.
“Yes, sir!” I answered dutifully, focusing as best I could. “Chastity…stays! Unsafe!”
I breathed a sigh of relief, finally letting my thoughts escape this shell of a body… finally helping these men see the monster in their midst… but it was as if Father hadn’t even heard me.
“So this is where your money goes, the undoing of my life’s work?” he snapped at John, before turning back to me. “Young lady, I do not know what silly ideas this boy is putting in your head, but you do not talk to me, or anyone, even behind closed doors! It is wholly improper! You are to be seen and not—”
“Yes! No! I don’t think so?” I spoke in riddles, clicking my heel twice in defiance to make it clear. A twinge in my stomach greeted me as I interrupted him so crassly, and my heart began to flutter. For a Doll, more suited to the quiet still of patient idleness, this fast-flowing argument and my sudden involvement in it was nigh-upon panic-inducing, but I settled my heaving breasts, only just. Dear Reader, I was wholly unused to rebellion, and the vox gag was — at this point — a clumsy weapon of my will. Not only had I been raised to see disobedience as fruitless, my lessons under the telly made that twinge almost sharp like the alarm in my ears. But… I had to make a stand. John, for all his sweetness and good intentions, was like a leaf in the wind, and Father just didn’t understand.
’Tell him,’ My mind implored John, but he only stammered whilst this gag muddied the waters with, “Recite us some poetry, dear!”
John looked at me, earnest and bewildered, whilst Father fumed. “Perfect form! I have no time for such nonsense! I’ll take that vox gag right out of your mouth if you—”
“This is mine!” I chirped back, unintentionally goading him on by violating one of my earliest lessons.
“Hope…” Father pinched the bridge of his nose, “You forget yourself. You forget your place. A doll cannot hold, and cannot own. Everything within and without her body is a gift. She—”
I couldn’t take this rote mantra anymore, the same words I had listened to for hours on loop under the telly at Jack’s. I couldn’t go back!
“No, thank you! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I had to take a sharp breath. John was as frozen as I was, knowing full well that one does not speak to their father so impetuously, Doll or not. Whilst what I had said was true — Father didn’t know why we had been driven to this transgression — this voice, shrill and frank; it was like a firehose, interpreting my thoughts almost unfiltered. His ideal Doll would never even think these thoughts, yet here I was: half-broken or half-free depending on your beliefs, entirely unpracticed in the art of conversation not involving fellatio, and eagerly exhibiting my rough edges. To him I must have seemed… horrific.
I held my tongue as best I could, watching his reaction in my periphery, but Father refused to yell. He refused to argue with a Doll. He simply muttered, “Enough.”
He set down his empty glass and strode over, intent on shutting me up and putting me in my place, but John moved quicker, and with a clumsy press to the left temple, to the subdermal button Dr. Hawthorne had implanted there just the day before, I felt… loosened…
I looked at him.
My eyes turned, I changed my gaze, and though my face remained placid, refined, and unaffected, my lips still plastic and pouting around this flower in my mouth; my shaky, wandering eyes pierced him.
John helped me stand on my teetering heels, raw and unsteady due to my freed ankles. He had never enforced locking buckles or padlocked anklets, so I kicked off one shoe, then the other, and dropped a few inches as I planted my sole directly on the cool hardwood floor — a wholly nostalgic sensation which rooted my stance with long-lost solidity and confidence, even if it ached to stretch my foot in such an unfeminine form, even if my legs remained weak and dollish. I took a step, my chest held proud by force, but my dress swaying under my own direction.
Father was speechless, frozen midstep as I strode unsteadily… then more confidently toward him with quite a strident gait, sure of my footing for the first time in years. With the temple button having released my upper neck along with my eyes, and my reliance on those high heels nothing but a feint, I could strut around the desk but still look up at my Father, my once-protector and guardian, over a foot taller than my lithe little form. I—
I gasped as I suddenly faltered, a sharp pain shooting through my neck, with muscles and bones and mechanisms-unknown grinding, having been locked and immobile for so long since my graduation. No arms arose to break my fall, save those of the two men in the room who caught me in time. John caught the handle in my bustle — there for good reason, apparently — whilst Father grasped me firmly by the waist, his large hands almost encircling my middle completely.
Both men cared for me in their own ways, but as I regained my strength, Father steeled, looking over me to John. “What have you done?!” he asked, incredulous, but I gazed up at him, directly, staring, blinking steadily as I had for almost two years straight.
“I’m sorry, Pappa.” I recited with this loaned voice, high and sweet and innocent, as I recalled when that innocence had dripped in diluted white paste onto the floor, my legs spread and left untouched. “You are everything I envisioned you to be.”
Father slowed, and furrowed his brow, then let out a belaboured breath— a gasp, really. Disbelief filled the room on all fronts, as I couldn’t believe the line had arrived unscrambled, crystal-clear from such a potent, shameful memory, and it took him a heartbeat or two to recall the phrasing from weeks prior. From our ‘visit.’
“Chastity?!” Father blurted, guilty and incredulous, inspecting me for the subtle differences in our old bodies, long gone, even as he avoided my beseeching eyes.
“No, this is Hope, sir. Her voice is clearly unpracticed. The d-doctors say she might speak indirectly for some time yet.”
John of course didn’t know to what I was referring, and I didn’t much care for him to find out. A part of me agonised over him discovering yet another instance of my utter humiliation and debasement, but another part remembered I could speak and shift the focus! What revelation!
“You don’t know the matter was it! I cannot happen to this is what I—” I stamped my bare foot with not a click but a dull thump, the force of my frustrations finally clear and reverberant. “We pair attacked, in the much danger!” I tried again, but it came out wrong. It was all coming out so wrong.
“…it’s a tad bit rough,” John offered, “but we had to—”
“HAD TO?!” Father washed his hands of me and retreated to the bar, pouring himself another drink, pulling his words together. “I was warned, you know, that seeking suitors outside the Society brought certain risks. I thought your father was the one to worry over. And perhaps I was right. But this…this is far worse.”
“But sir,” John held my shoulder to say he was in control. “My father tricked us all. He stole Hope back in June and left Chastity in her stead! You said yourself that what he was going to do to her was ‘unc-c-conscionable!’”
I stood as proudly as I could, looking at John then at Father. It was out! He knew! Finally!
There was a pause in his pour, a glance at me with an ounce of pity, before he kept serving himself. “What a mess…” I heard him mutter, swirling his glass before asking, “And Chastity… all this time here… she made no effort to reveal the truth of this affair?”
“What? No.” John held me tighter. “Hope said my father removed her will.”
Father sipped, his eyes low, defeated. “Then at least I have one daughter who can be salvaged.”
All this time… the agony… I couldn’t believe my ears. He didn’t… care! I piped up as the words came to mind, my filter barely holding together. “I am still daughter! I save Chastity! Jack hurts! Jack cheats! I can’t go back! I can’t go back! I can’t go back!” I almost hyperventilated just from the panic — of going back, of my sister suffering that fate, of Father’s chivalry evaporating from under me — but John held me up, and as the air filled my shallow breaths I stood fast again.
Father glared at me, plainly insulted by my words rather than hearing them. He downed his drink then eyed John. “I can’t hear myself think with that racket. How could you sully my little Hope Doll so?”
John’s brows furrowed as he saw the man my father was, and his voice held a steady tenor for the first time all day. “Actually, sir, I failed in that regard.”
He lifted my chin toward him and enjoyed my shaky pupils looking into his for the first time. No expression passed my brows or cheeks but my adoration was there, and so was his.
“I have been striving to convince your daughter to relinquish it all. To even accept d-donor arms from the continent: become a woman again. I asked her on the bridal tour, I told her I admired her as a d-doll, but we could find a way to restore her; and she refused. I asked her when she arrived here for the first time, if she would learn some signs and signals; and she only entertained the letterboard long enough to beg me dispose of it. I asked her again… I believe the day she was stolen from me,” he paused, breathing, calming himself, “I lost my temper… t-told her I could not tolerate such absence from my wife, and she held fast!
“Even after all the abuse and terror my father put her through, now that she needs these minor concessions to feel secure, I’ve tried to convince her to go further and she has refused me at every turn. She was raised with your ideals, sir, and wants to provide those here, to me. Hope is still a Doll, by choice this time. I assure you.”
Father laughed bitterly. “I hardly feel assured! She refused you? She speaks? She requires concessions? These qualities does not a Doll make.”
“But she has lost faith and trust. In men. In everything I think.”
“Perhaps because you lost her.” Father snapped, and John almost recoiled as the salt rubbed in his fresh wound.
“Because my father is a snake, sir. Are you not aware he is looking for any way to swindle you out of your estate? Pull the rug from under your feet? Discredit you so wholly that your wealth falls to your girls? To him?”
“I am the chief financier of a crown bank! He must be smarter than that!”
My gaze luxuriously flitted between the two men, even as the crook in my neck grew sharper. Father was laughing, treating this like a joke! He had to be made to understand, but how? Of course, there was only one way…
I savoured the love in John’s eyes, the admiration I had never expected to earn. Perhaps he might see me differently after this, but I had to say what I knew.
“I was trick. No. Trap… I fuck Pappa. Cunt. Trap.”
Both men blinked at my horrendous language — a ripe seasoning which had slipped down my throat alongside Jack’s sweat and seed whilst he chaffered with business associates on the phone — but something in Father chipped away and his curiosity got the better of him.
“What do you mean to say?” He had to grit his teeth before adding, “Speak like a Lady, now.”
It wouldn’t have shown on my expressionless face, but I concentrated hard, trying to find the memory; the words Jack had said in that hall by the Turner. I resisted my clockwork blinking for the first time in years to close myself from the world on command and just think… and the words seemed to come clearly:
“Jack… sought leverage… for months… nothing incriminating… not a crown charge of tax evasion but a legacy on the line… paste in your drink… use this body and this dress to seal the deal… defile me… Jack expects evidence… inside… Jack will take Chastity back… make her into his masterpiece instead… we would never get mixed up again…”
Both John and Father were stunned by my recollection, as patchy as it came from the little hifi speaker grille in my mouth. I opened my eyes and looked at John, ashamed and frightened that my infidelity would sour us, but his face showed only pity, regret, and a sliver of pride as he held my armless shoulder and nodded, quietly, “Good, you’re doing so well.”
Whilst John was supportive, Father fumed, his ire almost unquenchable. “Let me get this straight: Jack bid you attempt to seduce me in exchange for escaping his gratuitous remodelling? He made you — a Doll — choose your Pappa’s dignity or your own?”
I closed my eyes again, “Yes, sir… Impossible choices… everyday… with him.”
Dear Reader, who could have expected this to be the detail which prompted Father to finally soften towards me, but he did. There was no condoning of our actions to be had, but no longer was I the party of grossest misdeeds; for to him I had escaped choice and wilfulness as a revenant to warn them of Jack’s malicious nature.
Instead he worried and paced about the room…
“…but Jack already advised me to invest in one of his Malta accounts… quite successfully, I must admit… I deposited more than I originally intended after one spirited evening. I simply don’t understand.” He looked to John, almost desperate. “Why would he be collecting extortionate materials if he already has his margin?”
“I’m not a financier, sir. I don’t know the d-details, but my father takes his cut at the top… and in scandals down the line. He finds ways to ensure there are few withdrawals from his firm’s books. I thought this time would be d-d-different. He has never married into a con or ploy, and I had never been roped into his lies before, besides the family man routine.” John collected himself. “Suffice to say I underestimated the depths to which he would abuse those around him.”
Father paced in a line back and forth in the room, much like John when he was pondering a difficult equation. Indeed, he walked precisely the same path; where the lacquer had worn from the floor in a half-shade. He did not speak for a time, but eventually revelation came, softly: “…but if both my daughters are Collins wives, and he has your finances in his grips, then in essence he already retains the whole of my estate once I perish? My Berkshire lands, the accounts, Cushions, Cuddles, the lot! Why twist my daughter’s arm and conspire against me?”
I had no arm to twist, he and his ‘proper Society upbringing’ had ensured that, but I held my tongue.
John hesitated and looked at me, returning my same regret and shame, bubbling under the surface, finally ready to admit his own secret: “I have long suspected that the Malta accounts are not investments, but instead Father’s personal piggy bank, and well…” he looked off toward my Doll room, thinking perhaps of Chastity sitting there in perfect form, but in hindsight I suppose his late mother. “He has never been hesitant to bleed those closest to him dry.”
Father sat not unlike Rodin’s Thinker, more uncertainty in his posture than I had ever witnessed, and it dawned on me then: my marriage was a sham. John hung his head, knowing his namesake’s true nature, knowing this to be true. “I have had the paperwork for emancipation d-drawn for years. I never wanted his ill-gotten gains, I just couldn’t be rid of him until I became a fellow of a reputable college with a stipend and accomodation and the life I know I can sustain us… Sir, we have discussed it before. I am within spitting d-d-distance, but this has gnawed at me since I was old enough to ask from where our new wealth sprung.”
Father stood suddenly, far more imperative than panic in his step. “I was on this errand on that rogue’s behalf, to ensure Chastity’s safe return, I… I am such a fool. File your papers, John, and we will find Chas a more suitable husband. That will rid this villain from our lives.”
He lent my husband a supportive grip on the arm, a touch oft not extended among men. “I am not destitute from this affair, and you are not to blame, son. Take care of my girls and I will support your endeavours.”
The two nodded in understanding, then he looked down at me. “We will soothe your worries, Hope, and return you to perfect form in time. This can all be rectified. I must depart.”
I had no time to refute him, as my Pappa left to rally the Society and wage war against my abductor.
-
Teacher Dottie once said that cold winter days were a Doll’s worst, for whilst a Doll’s shortcut through the neck for air supply left the oral cavities free for higher purposes, those parts of the airway lent commonwomen a buffer from the sharp, bitter air. She recommended staying indoors or wearing a muff or scarf, and remembering we were delicate accessories and our men would care for us. ↩