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She sat on the top shelf of a china cabinet packed with antique toy cars. Lindsey would never have seen her if she hadn't pushed one of the cars forward to knock against the glass. The top shelf of the case was dark, and her cherubic round face was half in shadows. Lindsey carefully opened the case, one hand out to catch any falling cars, and reached up to extract the doll.
In the light, the doll's eyes gleamed glassily, and she seemed to be smiling slightly at Lindsey. She was a foot and a half tall, and her dress was ruffled black fabric, lace, and stripes that traced where her ribs would be. Her hair, pure white and silky to the touch, was gathered in a small bun at the back of her head. Lindsey fell in love instantly.
It was a long drive from the antique store, and in the backseat, the doll began to get restless. Lindsey talked to her. The rustling stopped.
At home, Lindsey set the doll on her coffee table and prepared her little bowl of soapy water. "I need to wash your dress, sweetheart. Did you see how much dust there is on it?" She turned the doll over and undid the delicate lacing and buttons holding the dress onto her body. The doll shivered.
The fasteners were grimy under Lindsey's touch, smearing dust and some kind of dark grease over her fingertips. When she pulled the dress over the doll's legs and plunged it into the bowl, dirt bloomed grey into the soapy water.
Lindsey dried her hands and turned the doll over to watch. Her body was bone-white china and clinked gently without her dress and petticoats to insulate her. The doll shivered again under Lindsey's gentle touch.
"I need a name for you," Lindsey murmured to her. She went back to washing the dress. Splotches of dark grease issued from it like smoke, drifting up to form bubbles on the surface of the water. "What is this stuff?"
When Lindsey hung the dress to dry and picked up the doll again, the doll whispered to her. Lindsey held her up to her ear, but she didn't say anything else.
Unlike the dress, the doll's body was clean, all smooth china made slippery in the new bowl of clean water. Lindsey washed her thoroughly anyway, pushing her fingertips into the joints and cleaning every bit she could reach. The doll's eyes closed under the water. Lindsey washed, blow dried, and combed her hair. It was short, barely shoulder-length, and she left it loose instead of gathering it back into its bun. The doll hummed quietly. "Do you like it when I touch you?" Lindsey asked her.
Lindsey blow dried the dress and left the room to eat dinner. When she returned, the doll was buttoned and laced back into her dress.
"You don't want any paint?" Lindsey asked her. When the doll didn't respond, Lindsey draped a cloth over her dress and prepared her black paint and brush. "I think you need some more lipstick. It's flaked off." The tiny brush danced across the doll's lips, filling in her black lipstick. She seemed to purse her lips for the application.
When the doll was dry, Lindsey gathered her up and nestled her into an open spot on the doll shelf. The other dolls rustled quietly. "Find out her name for me, will you?" Lindsey asked them. There was more rustling.
Lindsey woke in the middle of the night to silence. She got out of bed, pissed even though she didn't really need to, and went into the living room. The doll shelf was restless. All of them had shifted in the intervening hours, and Cecily was flat on her face. Lindsey sighed.
"Get along, please. You always do this when there's a new girl." The dolls glared daggers at her. "You can move if you want. You're not glued to the living room." Lindsey sat Cecily back up and went back to bed.
Some time later, Lindsey woke up again. Someone was whispering. This was how it usually went when she got a new doll. She sat up. The new doll's white hair shone in the dull light from the window. She was perched on Lindsey's dresser.
Lindsey squinted at her. "Are you watching me sleep?" Silence answered. "As long as it keeps you entertained," Lindsey said, and laid down to go back to sleep. The doll rustled. Lindsey looked. She'd moved to the other end of the dresser. "I'm trying to sleep," Lindsey told her. "What do you need?"
Lindsey woke up. She didn't remember laying her head down, but the sun was streaming through the windows now. The doll was still sitting on the dresser. Her name flared to life in Lindsey's head. She'd dreamed it sometime in the night, but the rest of the dream was gone. Gerard. "That's a nice name," Lindsey said, and snuggled back into the covers.
Gerard remained on the dresser all day. Lindsey spent most of the afternoon in her studio, and when she returned home, she threw all of her paint-covered clothes in a pile in her bedroom. It was a little strange to strip down to her underwear in front of a doll who watched with intelligent eyes, but Gerard had signed up for it when she moved to the bedroom. After she showered, Lindsey laid naked on her bed and told Gerard about the painting she was working on.
That night, Lindsey dreamed vividly. Her fingers were covered in paint, and she drew designs across someone's naked body, colorful serpents and vines and geometric shapes snaking across pale skin. Her handprints smeared over a woman's small breasts. Lindsey kissed her lips, smudging her black lipstick. Her face was indistinct, but Lindsey knew it was Gerard. Paint bloomed across the sheets. Lindsey's hands were all over Gerard, making a mess of the finger-painted patterns. They kissed until Gerard was panting with it, until her fingers clawed at Lindsey's back and she was grinding her hips up against Lindsey's thigh. Her cock smeared wetly in the mess of paint transferred onto Lindsey's body. Lindsey grabbed a handful of her ass and pulled her harder into her thigh. Gerard whimpered, a pitiful sound that went straight to the fire in Lindsey's core. Lindsey's teeth dug into Gerard's neck. The paint tasted like syrup in her mouth. Gerard's moans were like sobs, her fingernails biting into Lindsey's hips as she rutted against her thigh.
Before she was even fully awake, Lindsey's hand was in her shorts, her fingers on her clit. Her underwear was soaked, and it was all she could do to kick off the sheets and shove her underwear and shorts down around one ankle. Gerard was watching raptly. She'd sent the dream, and now she was enjoying the fruits of her labors.
"Fuck, Gerard," groaned Lindsey. She already felt almost as wrecked as Gerard had sounded in the dream. She propped up one leg and stroked her clit fast and hard until her back arched, coolness flooding her veins, and she collapsed back into the mattress, panting.
Lindsey couldn't lift her head to see her, but she could sense Gerard's satisfied smile. "Fuck, babe, we just met. I liked it. Let's do it more." She laid still for a long time. When she got up to clean herself off, she picked up Gerard from the dresser and tucked her into bed beside her. The rest of her dreams that night were normal and forgettable, whether doll-sent or not.
In the morning, Gerard was back on the doll shelf, her hair and clothing all neat and tidy. The dolls seemed to be getting along now that Gerard had had some fun. Lindsey couldn't help but shoot her a wink as she prepared bowls of cat food for her strays.
She'd never masturbated for a doll before, but none of them had ever asked. Most of them just liked to watch the garden. Lindsey had never figured out whether the souls that haunted antiques were once human, but if they had been, the process had removed all sense of urgency, maybe even a sense of time at all, and now they were content to watch the butterflies in Lindsey's garden. Sometimes they sent her dreams that felt like memories, and Lindsey kept those close to her heart, sometimes painted them and displayed them at shows, if the doll approved.
It was another long day in the studio. Lindsey kept finding herself pausing on her big canvas and curling over her sketchbook, her pastels forming scenes from Gerard's dream. But she had an upcoming deadline, and the brush always had to lift again before long.
Gerard watched her strip from the top of the dresser. Lindsey showered quickly, and, naked, her skin fresh and clean, picked up the doll from her perch and laid down, holding her to her chest. "Gerard," she said, "your dream--drawing it, trying to capture the feeling in color--distracted me all day." Gerard shivered. "I've never fucked a doll before. How much can you feel?"
It was half a dream, half a whisper, and Lindsey saw herself reaching up under Gerard's dress, pressing her fingertips into her leg joint until it popped slightly out of place. The motion came with such a jolt of physical feeling that when Lindsey came back to herself, she was gasping and squeezing Gerard tightly.
"You'd like that?" she asked when she'd recovered. It hadn't seemed sexual or even particularly pleasurable to her, but Gerard shuddered so hard in her arms that she was certain the answer was yes.
Lindsey did what she'd been shown, tracing her fingertips slowly up Gerard's leg under her petticoats until she reached the joints at her hips. She pressed lightly, pressed harder, and Gerard's leg popped out of place. Lindsey could feel the jolt in her own body, and she was suddenly very aware of how wet she was. Her fingers pressed harder into Gerard's joint. Gerard trembled like a living thing in her arms. Lindsey could feel the hum of pleasure-almost-pain emanating from Gerard's hip and into her own body.
It wasn't entirely Lindsey's own decision to shudder, release Gerard's leg back into place, and roll over, pressing Gerard into the mattress, her hand that wasn't embracing the doll reaching down to rub at her clit. It felt like instinct, but she knew Gerard had some influence on the action. Her face was pressed directly into Lindsey's tits, and Lindsey was rutting against the mattress like there was a woman's thigh there for her to rub against. She could almost imagine it, could almost feel Gerard fully embodied and grabbing at her.
When she came, it was a surprise, her orgasm punching through her and leaving her gasping into the sheets, her hips rabbiting against Gerard's imaginary thigh and her own hand. Gerard was completely still against her chest. "Gerard," gasped Lindsey. "Gerard."
She didn't remember falling asleep, only waking up hours later in the dead of night, the sun long gone. Gerard was still clutched in her arms, whispering and shifting against Lindsey's chest. Lindsey left her tucked into the covers as she went to clean herself up from earlier and piss.
The dream Gerard had sent to her before she woke up came back to her in fragmented frames and breaths as she sat in the bathroom. Hands gripping her thighs so tight they'd leave fingerprint-shaped bruises. Gerard under her, eating her out like her pussy was air. The slightly hazy view of Gerard's pale, naked body stretched out before her, her cock leaking just from the pleasure of eating Lindsey out.
Lindsey barely dried her hands before she was charging back to bed. Her fingers fumbled on Gerard's dress fasteners before she gave up, resigning herself to washing both the doll and her clothes in the morning. Gerard sighed happily when Lindsey straddled her face, pressing down on the smooth, warm china until she could feel the contours of Gerard's face against her labia. She was so wet again, so soon after wiping it all off with a damp washcloth.
"Fuck, Gerard, I hope you can taste what you're doing to me," Lindsey murmured. "I hope I'm all you can smell." It was a good thing Gerard didn't need to breathe, because Lindsey planned to ride the doll's pretty face until she came all over it.
Gerard's head was just the right size to fit between Lindsey's legs, easy for Lindsey to cup her hand around the back of her head and rub against her. Gerard moaned quietly underneath her. Her nose slid against Lindsey's clit. Lindsey thought about how wet Gerard's face was going to be, how it was going to run down her face and into her hair, and she laughed breathlessly.
"I'm going to have to clean you again, fuck," she said. "Get you naked and finger you in the bath. Pretty girl."
Gerard whined. It was almost loud enough to count as a real sound, like something Lindsey could actually hear rather than feel. Lindsey fucked harder against her face.
"Do you like when I call you pretty girl? Because you are. You're pretty. Fuck, it's no wonder your lips were worn off. Your mouth--"
Gerard's dream came back to her in full force. She could feel Gerard's fingers digging into her thighs, her tongue lapping intangibly at Lindsey's wetness, curling into her pussy as her nose rubbed against Lindsey's clit--
Orgasm crashed through Lindsey's body, once again unexpectedly early for what was essentially masturbation. Her fingers fisted into Gerard's soft hair, and she pressed the doll deeper into herself, her hips working on their own to coat Gerard's face with cum. It felt delicious, this spiritual connection between them. Lindsey could tell that Gerard could feel her climax somehow, just as Lindsey had somehow felt it when she'd fingered Gerard's leg joint. Lindsey could feel stars, could feel Gerard's body under hers.
She came down slowly. When she rolled over and picked up Gerard from her crater in the sheets, the faint light from the window shone off the wetness all over Gerard's face. The doll's hair and clothes were sex-rumpled. Lindsey licked across her face, licked again and again until Gerard's face wasn't slimy anymore, just wet and blushing. She hugged Gerard to her chest, rolled over again, and went back to sleep.
This time, Lindsey didn't set up her doll cleaning station in the living room. The other dolls didn't ask to see all that. She stood at the kitchen counter with her warm bowl of soapy water and dipped Gerard in, combing through her pale hair with her fingers. Gerard's eyes closed. Without the dress on, it was easy to press her fingers into Gerard's joints, feeling her shudder and shake as her limbs were nudged out of place. Lindsey did it again and again, enjoying the increasing desperation that radiated off of Gerard. When it became too much for the doll, bubbles streamed from her closed lips, and Lindsey released her. A half-dream rushed through her mind, too fast for her to catch.
"Shh, Gerard," she told the doll. "Now is your time. I'll take my turn later."