chapter 1
Merxia was a bicycling doll, one of the finest my Mistress had ever made. She was brought onto the Belgian team Clocklike-Sandsoap as a domestique (a rider who primarily helps other team members do well) at a time when most domestiques were still human riders. The Union Cycliste Internationale deliberated for three or four months about whether clockwork riders should be allowed in Grand Tours. Then Clocklike Corporation implied they were reconsidering sponsoring the Tour de France again that year. That helped the UCI reach a consensus on Doll Policy.
The UCI established that dolls were to participate as riders in a race in a domestique capacity only.
- A doll could participate in races by bringing bidons (water bottles), snacks, and other gear, between the cars and human riders.
- It was allowed to help the team avoid fines by carrying other riders' trash and disposing of it properly.
- It was allowed to trade bicycles with another rider, if theirs malfunctioned or got a flat.
- It was allowed to ride in front of another rider to provide a slipstream for another rider who was struggling to keep up for any reason.
- However, while the doll counted toward the eight-rider maximum of the team, it was not allowed to win any races or score any points, unlike human domestiques who would often attempt a win if their leader was compromised.
- It was only allowed to be wound again once after the beginning of a stage (once it reached the designated Feed Zone) and if it mismanaged its energy and could not finish a stage under its own power, it would be disqualified from the rest of the race.
- Its dimensions and weight must stay within certain "human" paramaters so as not to give it too much of an aerodynamic advantage.
- At the end of any stage, a doll could be pulled aside and subject to inspection, to insure it did not contain any hidden motors or batteries or anything else that might give it an unfair advantage as a domestique.
These rules managed to discourage most teams from pursuing doll domestiques or using them for anything but training purposes. But Clocklike-Sandsoap knew they had something special in Merxia. And they had the money. They invested in the strongest materials for Merxia's mechanisms. They contracted scientists to design her a "human-like" body that was as aerodynamic as possible. They paid Mistress to infuse her soul with agility, stamina, determination, loyalty, and love for speed. (Mistress did it for half a million dollars and certain perks.)
But we all knew she was special, even before all of the enhancements. Not only was she a mechanical wonder, not only was she beautiful beyond words, not only did she ride with the elegance of a gazelle, but she was friendly, funny, and extremely kind. Her team adored her. The public adored her. We all adored her.
"Ms. Merxia, you're the best doll in cycling history! Why do you do it? What motivates you?"
Merxia would shake out her long red ringlets. "This one thanks you. Just Merxia is fine. To be honest, this doll does it for the other dolls out there. The combat dolls fighting in the wars. The maid dolls serving in homes. This one has so much respect for those dolls. This one is thinking of them all the time. Oh, and its team mates of course. Its team mates are all so wonderful. They are so loyal to one another, and sacrifice themselves, and make sure this one knows it's an important part of the team. They care about it, they respect it, they try to make it comfortable. Oh, and most of all, this one does it for its Mistress. This one longs to be reuinted with its Mistress. But Mistress requires it here." She would smile sadly. It had been some time since Mistress had come to a race.
Merxia had been riding for Clocklike-Sandsoap for ten years and had just signed another 2-year contract when tragedy struck. Our mistress was killed. Some kind of encounter with an angel. I never learned the details. I had been passed on to her younger sister (whom I called Sistress) years ago and did not have much of a connection with the mistress anymore, but Merxia was devastated.
We weren't in contact with her, but Sistress and I would watch her race on the TV. There was a dead look in her eyes. The commentators pointed out the dubious moves she was making were almost definitely counter to the orders of her Directeur Sportif. One time she won a sprint. Her team was fined 200 Euros for this infraction, and the points were awarded to second place. That sprint cost her so many winds she had to draft behind another teammate to even finish.
The following day, she was involved in a crash. She flew off the side of a mountain. She would not awaken. They shipped her back to Sistress. When we opened the box, her head was in two pieces.
chapter 2
While Merxia and I were created by the same Mistress, I was not a prestigious cycling doll. I was Made years earlier, before Mistress had found her calling. I was Made to be a companion to an infant. Mistress brought in a tidy little sum making baby toys. But something went wrong with me. Maybe it was that she was distracted when she embroidered my eyes. I remember the needle stabbing my face so many times as she made stitches and then picked them out again trying to get them right. The fabric can only take so many attempts. "Fuck, fuck," were the first words I heard. And soon after: "no one will want you." And no one did. Including her.
For years I sat on a shelf in her workshop silently observing her, watching other dolls come alive under her fingers, watching her smile at them in satisfaction, watching her try to forget I was there. Try to ignore my gaze on her back. I was not Made with the ability to speak. That was not required of most dolls owned by infants. But years in the presence of her, her spells, her tremendous hat, and one day my tongue untied and I could speak. I pondered how I would announce my new ability to her but I could not think of anything to say. Years of hearing her muttering to herself as she worked, of hearing her cooing at her new creations, the new athletic dolls that were bringing her so much gold, of hearing her flatter her richer and richer clients, and yet the only thing she had said to me was "no one will want you." Instead of speaking to her, I began whispering evil things to her works in progress when she left the shop at night. They started coming into being with a unexplained fear of the dark. For a while Mistress could not make out why they kept glancing furtively in the direction of the window, where my shelf was.
I do regret hurting my sisters in this way. I was full of rancor. But when my Mistress figured it out, it finally won me her attention. She screamed at me. She threatened to Unmake me. I wept. Instead she gave me to her younger sister. I called her the Sistress. She called me Lil Nell. Nellie was Mistress's name. Short for Eleanor.
Sistress didn't exactly want me either. She had requested some kind of doll assistant since she doesn't Make dolls herself, and Mistress ignored her for years before giving her the worst, most useless doll she had. I was designed to lay next to an infant, after all. I can't walk, I can't cook or clean, I can barely move.
But Sistress speaks to me. She carries me around the house and lets me watch TV with her and shares her tea and asks me for input about her witchy exploits. I believe she sees me as some kind of evil good luck charm.
I did not have any ideas about what to do with Merxia's body, except hold a funeral. "We could invite Mistress's other dolls," I proposed. "Merxia's sisters." I wondered how many of them would recognize me. I wondered if they would feel a twinge of fear in my presence. I wondered if I would feel moved to apologize. But Sistress shot that idea down.
"No," she said. "She's the most beautiful thing my sister ever made. And now she's mine. My inheritance. Along with you, of course."
"So…we keep it in a display case?"
"No," said Sistress. "We're going to get her moving, somehow."
chapter 3
This doll was excited, for one moment, believed, for one moment, that Sistress Isi would do it. With one touch, with one murmured spell, she would restore Merxia, the world class cycling doll, to her wheeled throne.
Then I remembered. "But how will you do it?" I asked. "Do you even have any magical ability?"
"Of course I do," Sistress harumphed. "I'm a witch."
"But this one has never observed you performing any magic." It seemed to me Sistress spent most of her time watching television and playing games on the computer.
"I've been saving it up for something big."
"This one does not think it works like that." My Mistress used magic every day and never ran out. Indeed, her stores of magic seemed only to grow.
Sistress waved me off. "The problem is, I know nothing about making dolls. Nellie never let me in her workshop. I wouldn't even know where to begin. You, on the other hand, were in her workshop every day, for years. You're as good as her apprentice."
My heart sank as I begin to realize the actual reason Sistress kept me around. "This one? But this one couldn't, this one couldn't make a doll. This one doesn't even have hands." I waved my stumps.
"Would you want a better body?"
"So you can command me? To clean your house, make your tea, fetch your slippers? No thank you," I said. "This one prefers being carried around."
"Being useless, you mean," said Sistress. "Anyway, I only meant you can tell me how she did it. Let's get Merxy on the table and take a look."
The work table had never been used for work, and was covered in years of clutter. I smugly watched Sistress clear the items one by one, and wipe the surface with cloth, from my perch on the window. The sunlight landed on my face. I felt deeply content.
Then Sistress brought me to the table and leaned me against the wall, before dragging the broken doll over.
Looking at its cracked head like that stirred something in my memory. "There should be a bottle," I said, when Sistress came back with the top of doll's head.
"Bottle?"
"All of Mistress's dolls have one," I said. "Even me. If you squish my head—gently please—you'll feel it."
Sistress squished my head. "You're so soft," she sighed. "But yes, I feel it, like a little vial. Is that where your soul is stored?"
I couldn't answer right away. I had never been squished like that before. I wondered if I could trick her into squishing me again. "This one doesn't know," I said, finally. "But it saw Mistress fill and put one in every doll before she finished them, and shortly after, this one could start to feel the doll's mind beginning to awaken. I don't feel this doll's mind at all. Could the bottle have been lost?"
Sistress ran back to the box the doll was shipped in.
"Here it is," she said, showing it to me. Like the doll's head, it was in two pieces. Some of the substance remained dried on to the walls. "Can we mend it? I have a glue gun."
"Mmm," I said, pondering. Had any of the contents been lost? Would glue interfere with the magic?
"Well, what sort of stuff goes in the bottle?" asked Sistress. "She put some stuff in it and cast a spell, or something?"
"Various things," I said. "This one can't be sure of all of the ingredients but she often used blood and strands of her own hair."
"So we mend this bottle, and with some of the contents lost, Merxia comes back, but different," proposed Sistress, "or we make a new bottle, with, say, my blood and hair, and some new being awakens in this body."
The thought made me shudder. "Or nothing happens," I said. "You're not a doll maker. You can't become one simply by imitating your sister. You never studied the art!"
"But you did," Sistress said. "You're the key to this!"
"I have no hands," I reminded her. "I have no magic."
"Let's at least try fixing this bottle," said Sistress. "I'm sure if we try, it will do something. Maybe it will help her start up, even if she's not all she was, maybe she'll at least be able to speak to us." Sistress plugged in the gun.
"This one isn't sure," I said.
"Nell," said Sistress, "have you ever wondered why you adore me?"
"This one wouldn't say it adores you," I said. "Not exactly. It's more like a grudging respect."
"Have you ever wondered," continued Sistress, "why the landlady never raises our rent? Why crows leave quarters and silver dollars on our windowsill? Why I'm sent copies of so many new games for free? Why we have no money but never seem to want for anything?"
"No, this one has never wondered these things," I said. "I know I used to be curious about our finances but you always told me never to worry."
"So you stopped thinking about it entirely," said Sistress.
"Well, why, then?" I asked, cross. "Why about the landlady and the crows and the free games?" It was all true, of course. I didn't understand why I'd never wondered about it.
"Because I convinced them," she said. "Just as I convinced you to adore me and never worry about the finances. That's why I think, if we can get Merxia conscious for a moment, I can convince her to stay awake. Ah! It's warm!" She held the gun close to my cheek so I could feel it. I leaned closer. "Ah-ah! Not for you."
She glued the bottle together and slotted it into the little receptacle in Merxia's head. Then she taped the top of Merxia's head back on.
For a few moments nothing. Then I felt it. The spark.
"Do it," I said to Sistress. "Now."
"Uh," said Sistress. "Uh…" She had frozen. "Uh…uh….um…."
The broken doll's mind faded.
"It's too late," I said.
"FUCK," Sistress said. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck…"
"Sistress?"
"Fuck, I wasn't ready," said Sistress. "I was put on the spot, I couldn't remember what to say, the pressure was too much."
"It's possible that the bottle was missing too many contents," I said.
"I fucked it up, I fucked it up, I fucked it up, I'm useless, I'm a failure—"
"Don't blame yourself," I said. "She is very broken. It's not your fault." I wished I could do more to console her, but I couldn't reach her in her anguish. If I'd had real legs, I could have gone to her. If I'd had real hands, I could have patted her on the back.
After all, she was right. I did adore her.
chapter 4
Sistress moped around for a few hours but recovered quickly. Over the next few days she slapped together a few rag dolls that looked even more cursed than me, and experimented bestowing life onto them. I reached out and felt the barest consciousness take hold. Their psychic activity was equal to that of a garden worm, I told her. They flickered out after a few days at best. Some only lasted minutes.
"You are doing these as a proof of concept," I explained to her. "You are not putting the proper effort into their construction, so you don't love them enough to give them life. That's why it's not working."
"Nonsense. My sister didn't love you, and you're here," said Sistress.
"Miss already had the knack for it," I explained. "And she did put work into me. The proper effort."
Sistress wasn't concerned. "Well, I don't really have the tools or time or skill to make their bodies nice," she said. "I could get some pre-made from a manufacturer, do you think the life would take more easily if someone else made the 'proper effort?'"
"I understand some witches do it that way," and gave her the information for a toymaker Miss used to collaborate with from time to time. Later on I overheard her on the phone trying to convince this lady to give her some sample bodies for free. Before I ever learned whether her efforts were successful, the stranger arrived.
They were a mechanic, and they came with all sorts of tools and equipment, and Sistress dragged Merxia back over to the work table and they got to work on her. I was annoyed that Sistress had brought in an outsider without consulting me. It seemed to me they were going to replace Merxia's doll core with some kind of robot computer brain and the thought of it unsettled me greatly, for reasons I could not explain. Was it prejudice against robots? I had never met one. They seemed like fine entities, from what I had heard, and I supported robot liberation in theory. It was just, the use of Merxia's body… Merxia… was like my… sister? I felt protective of it, even though like all of the rest I had whispered evil things to it in its infancy. Some digital stranger… would it somehow have Merxia's memories? Would Mistress have wanted this? Would Merxia? Did it matter what they would have wanted? Did I want this? Did that matter? I supposed all that mattered was what Sistress wanted. She was the mistress of the houeshold, after all.
Why did she want Merxia alive so bad, I wondered, that she would adapt it into a completely different sort of entity? I thought of Merxia's sleek, athletic body, and I thought of the fact that Sistress had taken no lover for years, and I thought I knew. Sistress had asked my mistress for a doll to be her companion, and had received me. In my stunted form, I could not cook, or clean, or aid her with magic, and I could certainly not bring her any physical pleasure or be worthy of romantic love the way some dolls were. I thought of the time she had squeezed my tummy. I felt twisted inside. I remembered that Merxia had 100,000 follicles of human hair manually installed. Smooth and soft, beautifully maintained, a joy to touch. Mine was made with acrylic yarn. It was starting to pill. Merxia had a fully articulated body, including… including… sex parts, for having sex with humans, since cyclist dolls needed to be able to bond with their team in various ways. This body, my body, was completely featureless. My hands were mitts, with small bumps for thumbs. My feet looked like boots. There were seams on my sides and shoulders and a horizontal one between my legs and that was it, otherwise completely plain.
I heard a strange screaming in my head. I must be broken, I thought.
At that point Sistress came and found me and unceremoniously carried me back to the work table. Merxia's head was open, but now it had a hinge on it, and there was a little chair and there were all sorts of wires and I was entirely confused. It looked like the inside of a mecha like the ones who fought in the war but it was small enough to fit into a regular doll's head. But who could pilot such a mech? The mechanic was holding a tiny suit. "Lil Nell," they said to me, holding it out. Sistress had told me the mechanic's name but I hadn't been paying attention. To be honest, I'm not even sure what their pronouns were.
"Um," I said.
"I'll help you put it on," said Sistress, and right there in front of the mechanic she pulled off my dress and started pulling my limbs though the suit. It had like a lot of little things on it where you could plug in wires, and so once she was done she set me on the seat and began to plug it in.
"Excuse me," I said. "Excuse this one," I said, "excuse me, what exactly are you doing?"
"I'm putting my doll into my doll," said Sistress, "so my doll can drive my doll around. Let's go for a test run!" She plugged the last wire into a plug at the base of my neck and flipped the top of Merxia's head shut. Everything went dark.
chapter 5
"Oh! They're open!"
I was aware of a slow ticking as I tried to focus my eyes. They blinked, and not the stop motion embroidery blink I was used to. These lids were some kind of plastic and they blinked with a little click. I blinked them again.
Click.
"Oh… it's a beauty." I heard the voice resonating strangely in my head. "You never really know until they open their eyes and look back at you."
I concentrated, and the pairs of entities before me slowly phased into just two. My Sistress, who I did not recognize immediately, and that mechanic. They seemed so small. "Hello, dear," Sistress said. It was strange because her eyes were lower than mine. I was used to looking up at her. She'd also never called me "dear," who could she be talking to? I glanced around but there was no one else in the room. I glanced down, my stomach plummeting, and saw my own little dress, the one I had worn day in and day out since the day I was created, sixteen years ago, crumpled up on the table next to me. It was tiny. It was the size of the hand that lay in my lap, the fully articulated hand with ball jointed fingers.
Sistress touched the hand and I felt the touch. She squeezed it.
She hadn't brought back Merxia's conscious or made it a new one. She had given it someone else's. Mine. And I had been given a new body. Its.
I was simultaneously conscious of my own form, jammed into this tiny cockpit in Merxia's head, and every part of this new body. Because it hurt. The sensations feeding into me from the external body were that of pain.
I tried to move my leg. The mechanic yelped and collapsed onto the ground. I felt the leg I had moved swinging underneath me. Sistress burst into laughter and let go of my hand to help her friend up. I had kicked them in the shin, it seemed.
"Are you all right?" she said to them.
"I'm fine!" said the mechanic, oddly enthusiastic. "Consider that in its old body, not designed for mobility, it would have taken a great effort to make even the slightest movement."
"And now it's got some of the most powerful legs in the world," Sistress said, her eyes glistening. "Can you say something dear?" she asked, taking my hands again. Again, I looked around, not really believing she could be talking to me.
There was no one else she could be asking to speak, but I found I couldn't say anything. Sistress and the mechanic fretted over whether there was a problem with the voicebox or speech integration and Sistress questioned whether I would have to learn speech anew, having never had a tongue before.
"There's a speaker, though," said the mechanic. "It should be able have its original cloth doll voice projected, if nothing else."
The fact was, I was scared. I couldn't imagine what to do or say. It was just too strange.
Sistress was worried. I had never held my tongue around her. She hugged me. "It's going to be okay, Lil Nell," she said. "We're going to get you working."
I did manage something I had never before accomplished. I felt tears form and roll down Merxia's cheek.
I wondered why she wouldn't just open up Merxia's head and let me out.
Sistress and the mechanic, whose name, I gathered, was Nagy, lifted me from the work table and walked me over to the sofa. Whenever I tried to move my legs to aid in my transportation, being very careful not to flail them as I had done the first time, Sistress and Nagy heaped praise upon me. It was nice to know I was doing well. They were so proud of me. The tears wouldn't stop.
It felt sickening to ambulate from such a height but Sistress promised me, again and again, she wouldn't let me fall. And that was very soothing.
It would be easier on us both, and Nagy wouldn't have to be involved, if I was my old little self and Sistress could carry me under her arm. But the thing was, and the irony was not lost on me, if I could figure out how to work this contraption, I would have agency that was never available to me in my old form. I thought of times when Sistress slept late into the morning and I wanted to get off my shelf and watch TV or look out the window, and I would have no choice but to fling myself onto the ground, make my way, painstakingly to the door, and hope that it had not been latched since I could not reach the door knob, and then try and pull it open, and then be stuck on the floor in the living room or kitchen or wherever I wandered to. But with long legs like this, I could reach the doorknob. I could cross the apartment in an instant. I could leave it and go down the stairs and to the corner bus stop and hop on and go to the beach and go for a swim. And not wait for Sistress to get a whim, and try to make it think it was her idea to take me along. She might think that with my new form I could do chores, but I simply would not. I would never do any chore or household work. Unless she ordered me. And then I would sulk.
Nagy took their leave. Sistress sat on the couch and put her arms around me. "Can't you say anything, love? Let me know you're okay in there."
Dear? Love? What change had come over her? I didn't want her to worry about me. I tried to say something. I took a breath, and pursed my new lips. But the words froze in my throat. I blinked. The eyelids clicked. I thought right, carbon fiber. Merxia had been made of carbon fiber.
"O-okay! that works!" said Sistress. She hugged me. She put on a nature documentary for me to watch and fell asleep leaning up against me, her arms still around me.
It couldn't have been comfortable. Merxia's body wasn't exactly soft. Not like mine. But the warmth from her body stayed with me and comforted me throughout the night.
As the night wore on, my ticks slowed down and my head felt loopy. Both of my heads. The nature documenary ended and I started hearing something like white noise. A problem with the wiring I thought. In the dark room my eyes filled with visual noise. I hated it. When I was in my old body, at least I could shut down and have peace.
But in the noise there were words.
You……. I….. Remember.
You… I… Remember….
You… This one… remembers…. you.
chapter 6
It was dark and cold and cramped in Merxia's body while I waited for Sistress to wake up the next day, and I could not even open my eyes. The strange noise, the voice in my head, had faded into silence sometime over the night at least. It was some dream, or the suit was doing strange things to me.
I resolved that as soon as I was wound up, I would untie my tongue and insist that Sistress open up my head and let me out. If she refused, I would practice using the arms and fingers until I could open up the head myself, and see the light of day with my own sewn eyes.
I felt the couch beneath me shift and then a minute later I felt a hand on my back. She was bending me forward. I felt the tips of my tits brush against my thighs. Sensitive. I remembered Merxia wasn't wearing any clothes. An empty shell didn't need them, but if this was to be my body, I must have clothes. That would be the second item on my list of demands.
I felt something inserted into my back. I shivered as it clicked into place. That would be Merxia's key. I felt it twist and catch, once, twice, thrice. A tightness, a tension in my back. Sistress ran her finger down it before pulling the key out again. I shivered again, and my eyes clicked open.
"Try and sit up," I heard her say. "Gentle, now."
I slowly sat up. I remembered I wanted to speak. I slowly turned my head to face her. She peered into my eyes. "Sistress," I was going to say, "I demand to be released from this bondage."
But all that came out was a quiet "awa," a word I had never said before.
She seemed so beautiful through these eyes. She smiled when she heard the dollsound pass through Merxia's lips. She booped my nose and stood up.
"Come," she said, taking my hand. "Let's get you some clothes."
At least, I could cross that off of my list of demands. I couldn't remember what else was on it anymore.
Walking came a little easier today. I stumbled twice, and Sistress caught me. Into her bedroom we went, and she stood me up in front of the mirror and went over to the closet. I looked at myself in the mirror. Merxia stared back, the same old cycling doll I saw assembled and given life, but with a big crack in its head and something weird about its eyes. If Sistress wanted me in another body, there were less cursed options, I was certain. I reached up and struggled to put my hands on my head. Maybe there was a button somewhere, that would open it up. I lost my balance and fell onto the floor.
Sistress screamed and pulled me onto the bed. "Nell! Oh my god are you hurt?"
I looked up at her and finally found my words. "This bed is fucking comfortable," I said. "You sleep like this every night?"
I hated how my voice resonated in my head. It sounded so different. It sounded like a cross between Merxia's voice and my voice. It was deeper. It was loud.
"Y-you could sleep here too," said Sistress.
"You sure?" I asked. "This one wouldn't take up too much room?"
"We could make it work," said Sistress.
"You wanna pop open this one's head and let it out?" I asked. "Then there'd definitely be room."
"Oh, that won't be necessary," said Sistress, in a hurry.
I realized then she didn't intend to ever let me out. Because…"you don't want to look at it ever again," I said. "You hate it."
Sistress frowned, reached over, and opened my head.
And there I was in the chair, staring at the ceiling. I had gotten kind of used to the pain and noise of being in Merxia and now it had suddenly vanished. It was quiet.
"I don't hate your body," said Sistress. "I thought you hated it. A body like… that…"
She couldn't stand to look at it. She wouldn't meet my eyes. "I liked it! I liked being carried around! It was nice!"
"You couldn't do anything, Nell! You were powerless. You hated to have to ask me for anything so you never got anything you wanted."
"This one…never wanted anything."
"Everyone wants things, Nell."
"This one is just a doll."
"That doesn't mean shit. You've got depth, Nell. Don't pretend you don't. You've got wants, somewhere in that twisted heart of yours. The way you would stare at me, I could feel it, eating away at you. Thought about making you tell me. Didn't feel like I deserved to know."
"I wanted you to— whatever." I wanted her to touch me. To carry me around, to hold me, to snuggle with me in bed. It should have been obvious that was my Purpose, considering what I was made for. But she only touched me when she had to.
Sistress took Merxia's hands—she seemed willing enough to touch that one—and then, realizing I couldn't feel them with the head open, she reached into the cockpit and took my tiny cotton stumps and looked into my clumsily stitched eyes. I felt dizzy with happiness feeling her big hands close around my tiny ones. She seemed uncomfortable.
"I get why you're mad," she said.
"Dolls don't get mad," I said.
"I should have told you, Nell. What me and Nagy were doing. That we were going to use you to wake up Merxy. I'm sorry. I just… I had a stroke of inspiration! And I knew you'd object. And I didn't want to have to argue with you. I just thought… it would work and you'd love it in spite of yourself and I'd finally be like… a good witch to you. The witch you deserved."
"You're already the witch this one deserves." It was annoying, her explanation, like even if she'd told me what she was doing I still wouldn't have a choice in the matter. But I was already beginning to feel comforted by the apology.
"You're just saying that because you have low self image," said Sistress. "You are a good doll—" I scoffed "—you are! and you deserve a good witch and I am not that. But I want you to keep trying this body and learn the controls and just, see what you can do with it. Think of it as a tool. And if you really want, we can eject you some nights and you can sleep in the bed with me. In your"—she gestured at me, making a face—"little body."
I thought, maybe she cared about me, but not my hateful malformed body. And maybe Merxia's body inspired in her a poweful lust, making her subconsciously kinder to me in it. I was hooked on that tenderness—even if it wasn't really for me—and I didn't want to give it up.
"Okay," I said, "I'll do it. But first, would you lift me out of here, and give me a hug?"
She unzipped me from the suit, which was still plugged in, lifted me out, naked as the day I was made, and crushed me in her arms.
She was so warm. I could hardly think.
"This…is nice," she murmured, and I could feel the words, along with her heartbeat, vibrating in her chest.
chapter 7
Over the next few days in the dollshell, it was the memory of Sistress hugging my small, frail cloth body that kept me going. I learned to balance and walk on my own. I learned how to open doors. I learned how to sit down and get up.
Picking things up and holding them was difficult. Doing things with my fingers was difficult. Sistress had this idea that we could play video games together but it was only on the fourth day that I began to even be able to wiggle them independently.
Every night, Sistress took my hand and lead me to bed. The comfort of the bed that I felt through the doll shell mitigated somewhat the discomfort of being jammed motionless in a cockpit chair 24/7 with constant background noise and pain. Sistress, smaller than me now, would wrap her little body around mine to snuggle. I did not understand why she did this, as my body was hard and cool to touch. But her own warmth spread to me and I could only lay there motionless and absorb as much as I could.
As my spring wound down the noise increased and I would hear a voice. During the day I had concluded that this was Merxia's residual being, lingering in the physical form it had left behind and traveling to my core through the wires in my suit. "Bad, evil doll you," it said to me many times. "Bad doll. Hurt sisters. Bad doll. Hurt sisters. Bad doll. Ugly doll. Scary doll." I tried to apologize but I wasn't sure I was getting through. It was difficult to think with all that noise that bubbled up around all of its words.
Finally, after several nights, something unlocked. Looking back later, I realized it was the night after Sistress and I had made out on the couch for the first time. Sistress and I were playing Smash. She was playing characters she'd never played before in order to give me some kind of advantage. But I kept losing again and again. I wondered if I'd be any better at the racing game. I thought I'd probably be better at the racing game. I remembered Sistress saying that I never told her anything I wanted. Implying that that was something that I was allowed to do. Something that she wanted me to do. I suggested we try the racing game.
I still didn't win but driving the video game car somehow felt more natural and I came in ahead of the slower computers. When I set down the remote, I noticed that Sistress was looking at me. She leaned forward and kissed me on the lips, and I felt a tingling, between the outer body legs, and then somehow in between my inner body legs. Without thinking about it I found myself kissing her back, and this was the first time I had managed it. Many times Sistress had kissed me in this new body and I had wondered terrified how does one do that with ones lips? Will she be mad if I can't ever get it right? But Mistress had designed Merxia's body to kiss, it seemed, to kiss cyclists, to kiss witches, to kiss whomever it might be called upon to kiss. I just had to be in the right mood.
I managed a lot of succesful kissing that night. I almost felt like the relationship with the Sistress was finally getting somewhere. I almost felt like it had been worth it, trying out this new body, just to experience that. Even if Sistress had been willing to kiss the old body so passionately, could it have responded like this one did? Could it have been capable of feeling those sensations?
And that's why I think the ghost listened that night when "stop," I begged. "Stop, stop, stop… I don't… I try… try to be good… good doll. Regret…hurting…sisters."
The noise quietened and I had peace the rest of the night. The following night when the noise came again, it was quieter. The dead doll whispered to me.
Who witch. Who witch. Not Mistress.
"Mistress's sister, Izzy."
Sister Izzy.
"Yes."
Mistress not love bad doll. Gave it away. Threw it away.
"My name is Nell."
There was a crackling feeling around the edges of my brain. She didn't like that. Eleanor was her Mistress's name, after all. Mistress hate Nell. Merxy hate Nell.
I sighed. "Mistress loved Merxia."
Another crackling. This one felt more like a sob. Not enough.
I felt her sobbing for the rest of the night.
"This body is cursed," I said to Sistress the next day as soon as she had wound me up. "It's haunted. I think I should leave while I still can." She had me elaborate.
"If Merxia's spirit is communicating with you through the body," the witch said, "then I think you should wait, and see what it has to say. It didn't exactly threaten you."
"She already said she hates me. She's going to rip me to shreds in there or something."
"I don't think there is enough of it left in there to do that. Besides, it stopped calling you a bad doll when you told it your name. That's a good sign."
When I asked if I could sleep with her out of the suit that night, she asked me to wait a few more days. "I just want to see where this goes." She kissed me, so I said "okay."
I should have kept my mouth shut, I thought that night, as my spring began to wind down. You can never trust a Witch. But Sistress cuddled me extra hard that night, kissing me on the neck and stroking my head. "I'm here with you, Nell, okay?" she said. "I'll protect you."
I didn't know how she could, with the meager powers that she had. She couldn't even hear Merxia's voice from out there, and I was never cognizant enough to convey what was said to me. It was nice, all the same. I felt tingles on the patches of Merxia's skin where she kissed us. Every day Sistress's affection for this body felt richer and more complex.
"It's okay, Little Nell," she murmured. "You're not alone."
This I knew all too well.
The spring wound down and Merxia was with me immediately.
Mistress loved Merxy. Not enough, Merxia said. Threw it away. Gave it away. To team.
Then even Mistress's best doll had not been good enough. Even her best doll had been discarded, sold off. No one had been enough. Merxia was left with the team, while Mistress went out hunting angels. To what end, I had to ask. "Then…"
Sisters, said Merxia. Merxy and Nell, sisters. Alike.
"Merxia want Nell to leave?" I asked. "Let it rest in peace?"
No. The static crackled, and then receded. No peace for Merxia. Only darkness. Screaming. Please Nell stay. It lonely.
"Even though this one hurt you?"
Merxia move again with Nell's will. Merxia see, hear, again with Nell's senses. Merxia feel how witch sister love Nell. It nice. It nice.
"It is nice," I agreed. And then she let me sleep.
chapter 8
I knew Sistress was burning with curiosity about what kind of communications I could have had with the dead doll overnight, but she did her best to appear satisfied with the summary I gave. Which was that I'd come to an understanding with the ghost, and I didn't feel unsafe in the body anymore. I worried she would try to get more out of me, with her powers of suggestion, but she bit her lip. I reckoned she was trying to get my guard down again.
But I was glad. I didn't know how much I could resist her, given my feelings for her, especially now that she was so much more free with her affection. And I didn't want to repeat what Merxia told me in confidence. Merxia felt abandoned by the Mistress. Merxia likes when you pay us attention. No, no, no, I could never tell her that.
The days passed on, and they were almost happy. I learned how to use my new body, all different parts of it, and at night, as my body shut down with the feeling of Sistress's arms around me, Merxia's voice joined me. Merxia told me stories, in her fragmented speech, about her time with the Mistress, or her time on the team, and sometimes she sang me songs she had heard out in the wide world, in all different languages. She had learned at least four or five in the professional peloton, since there were riders from all different countries. When Sistress and I watched TV nowadays, if something were in a different language, I could hear incomplete translations in my ear. That was the limit of our communications during the daytime, it seemed, but she was watching everything and would sometimes ask me questions later on. I never wanted to spend the night without her. And I never wanted her to spend the night alone. It was almost like Sistress was holding Merxia, and Merxia was holding me. Sistress's promise that I might spend some nights out of the cockpit was forgotten.
One day, Sistress said she was going to the magical supply store and asked if I wanted to come along. I had still never left the apartment, and it was very exciting! I was so nervous. I got dressed in my loveliest dress, that Sistress had ordered for me. When she saw me, she chuckled and changed herself, into a nicer dress and a bigger, floppier pointy hat. "We will be such a sweet pair," she said. "A Witch and her Doll."
I made it three steps before falling down the rest of the flight. Sistress picked me up and brushed me off. "Well that's one way of getting down. Come on!"
But I didn't want to go anymore after that. So she helped me back up the stairs and tucked me into bed where I nursed my bruised ego. I wondered what she was even doing at the magic supply store. She'd never needed any magic supplies before.
By the time she got back later, we had finally stopped shaking. She lead me into the office where she had a little table that she started setting up as an altar, with crystals, herbs, and pentacles she'd gotten at the magic supply store. I sat at the desk chair and watched her. She kept referring to her phone.
"Damn it, where is my wand, though?" she muttered.
"In the drawer with the chopsticks," I said. I noticed it when I had been putting away clean dishes. I had started doing little things around the house, less to serve Sistress than to practice the piloting of the body. I could put away most of the china without breaking it, now. "Why do you want it, though? What's all this, anyway?"
Sistress colored. "Oh, you know," she said. "I've been thinking, with everything that's happened, I should give magic a real try. I never could before, and all. It just seemed impossible, with Ellie being so talented, so effortlessly. I felt so worthless next to her. And like you…you, as in Nell, I mean, were supposedly the worst, most useless thing she ever made and you were still just so incredible! A new being, so full of spite, created almost unintentionally? It made me so angry, all I wanted to do was play mmorpgs. But now she's dead! So I'm ready. I'm going to start from the beginning and do some basic magic and I'm going to practice every day. Just like you said. Look! I have a beautiful book to write spells in." It was beautiful, bound in leather, with a crow on the front.
"Ah… hmm…" I said. I bit my lip. I wiggled my fingers. I tapped my foot.
"What is it, Nell?" asked Sistress.
"It just occurred to me that I don't know if I know how to write."
"Oh!" said Sistress and she jumped up and grabbed my hands. "Nellie, you've always wanted to write! It's something you've always wanted but you could never hold a pen! And now you can, but you don't know how! We have to teach you! And then! You could help write down my spells in the grimoire! I mean, if you wanted," she said. "It might be fun. You wouldn't have to."
It did sound fun. "Awa…" I said pensively. I wasn't sure where she got the idea that I'd always wanted to write. It wasn't wrong, exactly, but I had never quite voiced it, even to myself. I swiveled on the desk chair to face the computer.
"Can one use this thing to write?"
"Well sure," said Sistress.
"Would Sistress show this one how to use it?"
And that was when I started writing this account.
chapter 9
Another month went by. I learned how to type, and to surf the internet. I helped Sistress type up some very basic spells ("reward helpful crows with good luck", "tits enlargening spell level 1", "video game dexterity buff") and started dollposting. Things started feeling normal. Then a cyclist from Merxy's team contacted Sistress.
He wanted to come visit, chat with Sistress, and pay his respects.
I listened to Sistress explain to him over the phone that Merxia had been restored to life, but she was a bit vague on the details. She didn't want to admit that she'd done so by stuffing another doll into Merxia's unresponsive shell, that probably wouldn't sound very good to a stranger. "So while this fellow visits, just don't say a lot" said Sistress. "You don't have to pretend to remember him, I told him you came back different, forgot most everything."
"You should have told him not to come," I said.
"But I think he wants to give us money," said Sistress. "In my tarot reading the other day it said a man on a horse was going to visit and bring gifts. I bet it meant a man on a bike. Anyway, you've been dollposting so much you should have your own laptop."
"What's this guy's name, anyway?" I asked.
"Wiebe? or Weibe? Wiebe S….sierksinga, or was it—"
A roar of noise rose up in my head and I couldn't hear anything else she said. My vision disolved into black and white static. And I saw the man's face. Actually I did remember him from when we watched the races. The commentators had called him Wiebe Sierkstra the Human Vacuum and he was another domestique for the team. He would always vacuum up his team mates, the commentators said, and make sure they got to the finish line. Sistress would always say "and then he—" and then make a rude gesture with her tongue in her cheek. He had been in the background of the shot of Merxia's interview, after her illicit sprint, looking pale and troubled.
This was the first time Merxy had pulled me out of consciousness in the middle of the day to show me something. He must have been important.
Moments later, well I'm not sure how long it was, the face cleared, the noise cleared, and I saw Sistress in front of me. She was holding my hands and peering up into my face.
"H-hi," I said.
"Nell," she said. "I'll tell him not to come."
"N-no. It's okay," I said. "I think we'd… like to see him."
That night, a bit nervous, I asked Merxy about him. Merxy flooded me with memories. There were in fact a lot of memories of him kneeling in front of her between her legs as she gently held his head in place, her fingers between his sandy hair. In hotel rooms. On top of mountains, next to their bikes. On the team bus, with others watching. Interspersed were memories of normal conversations with him, or memories of him holding her as she wept. She had wept a lot. It had just been very hard to be so hard from Mistress. Wiebe seemed to care.
I cleaned the entire house in the days leading up to Wiebe's visit. It wasn't for Sistress, I told myself, it was for Merxy. I didn't really know how to clean, but I watched videos online and talked to some of the maid dolls. Sistress took me out to buy cleaning supplies. (I finally learned to use the stairs.) I purged the house of years of dust, and swept every dish. Sistress was, I think, a little unnerved.
Wiebe arrived. The gift was Merxia's team bicycle, an extra one. I didn't know we had a heart, but it started beating like mad when we saw him standing in the doorway with the bike. I almost fell over, but Sistress caught me. She took my hand, and we all went into the living room.
Wiebe looked at his hands. "Thank you so much for having me." He had a light accent, pronouncing his v's like f's, his intonation lilted up and down and up and down. His voice made us shiver. I could feel the static rippling up and down my arms and legs.
"Of course," said Sistress. "And what a beautiful bicycle you've brought for Merxia. Though… we don't know if it is still able to ride."
"For sure, for sure," said Wiebe. "And…" he peered at us. "Miss Isabel said you might not remember much."
I blinked. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. "Ah…wa…" were the only sounds it seemed like I could make. My fingers twitched. I remembered the sex memories Merxia had shown me. There was a throb between my legs.
"You know what," Sistress said, blushing, "maybe she does remember you, Wiebe. Let me… give you two some privacy." She got up and left.
I glanced down realized that Sistress must have seen my doll parts become hard through my dress. I wondered if she felt jealous. I wondered if Wiebe noticed.
Wiebe sat down on the couch next to us where Sistress had been. We gave him our hand. He took it, and ran his finger all over it. We saw a tear fall on it. He was crying.
Crying. He was crying. Awa.
I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. We lifted our hand to his cheek. "Het komt goed, het komt goed," this one crooned. "Het komt goed, liefje."
"Liefje…" he repeated, through sobs. "When you went off the cliff… I went after. I went to you."
I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. We put our arms around him, repeating "het komt goed, het komt goed." We were telling him it was going to be okay, maybe.
And he said, "I thought… I thought… I thought I felt you die, in my arms."
It was something about his voice. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. "Sorry, sorry," this one said. "Sorry…" Looking up at the sky, this one's sight darkening, the top of its head is gone, arms are around it, they are shaking, shaking, shaking, this one smells dirt, and sweat and tears. His—liefje's. Holding this one…while he cries. No. Wrong. Error. Error. Erro
"Merxy," this one said, "Broken." Error. Try to explain. "After Mistress. No race no more. Could not no." Holding him. While he cries. Log error. It is this one. Who should cry.
"I know," Wiebe said. "I understand but…it hurt so much more than I could have ever expected. A-and then… they took you away. A-and you never came back."
Failed. Failed liefje. "Sorry, sorry. Sorry to leave liefje. Leave liefje like that. This one's fault. Please. Do not cry. Broken doll not person, no problem not matter. Replace." Log. Broken doll. Decommission.
Wiebe shook his head, and lifted it. He was smiling through his tears. "No, don't you see?" he said "Nothing could replace you. D-don't worry about me. You're here, you're alive. Alive, and talking to me. And you … you remember. I thought you'd remember your Mistress, maybe, Miss Isabel, maybe even the directeur sportif, but me? A-and our name for each other? A-and—" He glanced at this one's lap. And didn't say anything more.
This one stroked his cheek. "Important," it said. He remembered himself.
"Y-yes. You're very important. I didn't tell you, so I was going to come here and try to explain to Miss Isabel, your only family, h-how much you meant to me. How…precious you are. I can't tell you how happy I am… happy that I can just tell you, directly."
"H-ha-appy?" this one said, its speech malfunctioning. Log. Its speech, whole body tremble now. "If happy, why so c-cry?"
In response, liefje kissed this one's cheek, from which tears freely flowed. "I love you," he said.