Chapter Text
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For an entire week, Sharon fancies herself a maternal being. The Xavier fortune is more than enough to adopt a human baby, but you can't train them. Besides, marionettes are in fashion, and she is awfully interested in those exclusive puppeteer soirees.
On Saturday, she buys a newly registered marionette, born only a couple of days ago. It's male, smaller than a human infant, and perfectly naked. The store owner had it on display, boasting of its fine pedigree--directly descended from the original line of mannequins--unparalleled resilience, conceived in vitro, minimum intravenous feeding and and no handling. A clean slate, only 3 pounds and $3,000,000! She pops its tiny form off the display stand by its adorably fluffy hair. She names it Charles.
By Saturday evening, Sharon decides that if parenting is anything like taking care of an underdeveloped marionette, then she wants no part of it. Unfortunately, sales are final. She could probably just buy another one, but decides to first commission a soundproof room, and flings Charles inside. The creature must have been drugged in the store--if she'd known that marionettes periodically cry and whine, she would hardly have made the purchase to begin with.
On Thursday, she returns from a gala and opens the soundproof door. She can't really see the marionette, and flicks on the lights in the windowless room. Hopefully, the thing is dead by now. In that case, she could sue the store for selling her such a uselessly needy piece of junk. Unfortunately, its tiny ribs still rise and fall periodically. It's merely curled in a corner of the room against the black soundproofing foam, a few puddles of stale piss wrinkling Sharon's nose. Fortunately, it hasn't defecated. Even more fortunately, it's stopped making unnecessary noises. Maybe she could find some use for it.
On Friday, she makes the call. The trainer, a Mr. Schmidt, comes within the hour.
"My, do you have a lovely specimen here, Ms. Xavier. Just over a week old, if I'm not mistaken. May I ask its name?"
"Charles. Train it. I want the thing to know basic commands as soon as possible."
"I can take it for two hours a day. Will that suffice?"
"Fine, fine. Just take it now."
"Any restrictions? Of course I would never inflict permanent damage. Your marionette's skin will be as perfect and unbroken as ever. But some puppeteers like to refrain from loud noises, certain punishments, specific foods...."
"Does the thing need to be fed?"
"Oh, no. Not this marvelous beast. It does need water, but not much."
"Then don't bother. Do whatever you need to, I just want it useful."
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The first thing Schmidt does involves a scale. He deposits Charles on it, and slowly examines the marionette from head to toe. Its large blue eyes are tired and half lidded beneath a fringe of light brown hair. Its freckled cheeks are supported by a sharp jawline, abruptly leading to a slender, smooth neck precariously balancing its childishly proportioned head. The marionette's thin shoulders rise into delicate clavicles that begin a narrow chest, ribs tantalizingly shifting against the tender skin around them. They give way to a soft, concave middle. It sits on a bottom with hardly any padding, tailbone at the end of a beaded spine shyly poking out. Bumps of hip bone bookend the concave which flattens and rises at a tiny nub between thighs that barely touch near the knees, which have been pushed together. Its breath hitches, and tiny fingers grasp at its abdomen, squeezing the flesh tightly. It begins to cry.
The second thing Schmidt does involves a collar attached to a heavy length of chain leash. Every time the marionette gathers breath, the collar constricts, and it chokes instead.
"Don't cry," Schmidt coos softly, jerking the chain with flicks of the wrist until the marionette begins to sway and stops fighting.
It's a reasonably good start.
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Schmidt's services are remarkably thorough. By the end of the week, Sharon can give it basic commands: go, come, shut up. The little beast can only crawl for now on thin fingers and sharp knees, but it moves quickly enough, and behaves itself. It fails once, after which she orders it into the soundproof room and shuts the door for a hot afternoon. It's sluggish and gasping, skin glowing rosy by the time she opens the door again. A brief call to Schmidt later, she gives it a bowl of water.
"Drink," she commands. It does so, lapping desperately. She smacks it with a belt wider than its trembling thighs, and it whimpers. The water almost sloshes out of the bowl. "I didn't say you could lie down. Get up."
After just a few seconds, Sharon snatches the bowl away. "Stop. Don't want you pissing at the puppeteer's soiree this evening."
The preparation required is minimal but still tedious. Sharon dunks Charles under the tap and scrubs viciously for a few minutes. She fastens a tiny corset tight over Charles's ribcage, pausing for a second at its edge. Charles's soft middle still shrinks inwards, but now even a corset is unable to disguise the ledge at the lowest ribs. Slowly, perhaps unconsciously, Charles leans into Sharon's hands, still on the corset straps. She pulls them brutally tighter in response, choking the marionette's thin waist and then tying it off. The sheer, sky-blue silk dress falls well over his exceptionally feminine form.
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The soiree is exceptionally delightful. Marionettes, Sharon learns, live for their puppeteer's pleasure. Quite literally, says one of the more handsome men she meets. His three marionettes used to be four, but he didn't like the other, and so it died. A very clean and convenient way of dealing with the things, Sharon notes. She also learns that Charles is, as Schmidt said, exceptionally attractive and very obedient. The marionette knelt at her feet does not waver.
Schmidt comes as well with his own marionette, just five years old. Charles's large, bright blue eyes look resolutely away from Schmidt. Charles shrinks against the leg of the table. Sharon scolds it, directing a solid kick into its corseted chest, driving out what shallow breaths had managed to draw inside. She does not notice Schmidt's marionette clenching its jaw, eyes flashing.
Somehow, Charles manages to remain conscious for the entire evening, during which various puppeteers praise Charles's lithe figure and inquire after the marionette's weight. Some of them are impressed, and the ones that aren't have rather large and shapely marionettes, for mannequin use. Sharon is sure she can see flashes of envy in their eyes. The ones with thin and graceful marionettes assure her that a full corset will be unnecessary in the future--just reshaping the ribs slightly will be more than enough.
At 10pm, the soiree draws to a close. Sharon is left with Schmidt and another man far in a corner of the balcony. The man whispers something to his marionette, and it shakes its head in denial. The man sighs, and strokes its hair.
"Disgraceful," Schmidt comments. Sharon agrees. Marionettes have been bred so far from and so much lower than humans that treating them with such care can only lower yourself. Charles's sole purpose is to look pretty while opening the puppeteer world to her. And what handsome puppeteers they were! She allows Schmidt to escort her to a taxi, dragging Charles's breathless form behind her. Thankfully, the mannequin isn't heavy as she pulls it by the collar into the taxi. She doesn't intend for it to get heavier.
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