House of Dolls

by Harmon Cooper

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Sleep for Us

  Roman stumbled into the red-light district a few streets away from the hospital.

  He couldn’t really focus on anything, and he felt his feet drag with each step he took. Nadine had offered to take him home, to let him sleep at her place, but he’d blown her off. There was really no point.

  It was here that he’d first broken his vows to his wife, on a night similar to this one, with a slight breeze and a fog sitting over the city that covered the stars.

  With a prostitute dressed as a famous exemplar no less, which had only dug the knife in deeper. It had sparked a hunger in him, a hunger for flesh that was never satiated. Being close to someone was what he’d wanted, but he hadn’t wanted to be close to just anyone, so he’d chosen everyone. And Roman had really gone out that first night.

  He’d paid for four women, which was two or three more than he could have possibly needed, and it took a little alcohol, but he was eventually able to pry open a side of himself he had never explored.

  Fuck had he felt guilty afterward.

  The guilt became a sort of propellant fueling his desire. The guilt, the pleasure, the repentance: a trinity for those who would never recover.

  And here Roman was again, just an hour after learning of Celia’s condition, walking along and looking at the women behind the large glass windows that lined the street.

  All the establishments were set up this way, with large windowfronts that had rotating casts of available offerings. Anything and everything anyone could want, from the bizarre to the slightly normal—no stone left unturned.

  Roman stopped and admired a dark-skinned woman whose tits were pressed against the glass. She reached her neck forward and kissed the glass, her tongue flitting out of her mouth as she licked it, her nipples expanding as she pushed her body even closer, her breath now hot against the smooth surface.

  He could go in for this, and he was even turning to her door when another sex-doll store caught his eye.

  The real reason he’d come here. Roman waved goodbye to the woman, ignoring the pouty look on her face.

  This place was different than the first sex-doll shop he’d visited, the dolls nonexistent. There was simply a chair in the center of the room, and another chair across from it where a fit woman sat, one thin and slightly muscled leg crossed over the other.

  She was a young woman, dressed professionally, a clip in her light-gray hair and something mysterious about her smile.

  “Please take a seat.”

  Roman did as instructed.

  He sniffed, a remnant of the fact that he’d been sobbing just twenty or thirty minutes ago.

  A century passed before him in the time it took for him to fully sit.

  Roman had done everything Nadine had asked of him at the hospital. It had only taken her a moment to whip together some details. He’d signed the paperwork to put his wife in hospice, and she would be transported there within two hours since teleporters who could move large objects were in demand.

  Nadine had set everything up through a clinic in the eastern part of the city, a hospice twenty-five miles or so from the center of Centralia. She’d promised that his wife would be stable, that it would take the telepath a couple days to get approval to come here, that things would work out, and that he should be patient until they did.

  And Roman had the chance to stay with her and teleport east with her, but he couldn’t bear looking at Celia anymore. Seeing her like that, her head shaved, her body nothing more than a sack of bones, her eyes sunken in, her skin soft and white…

  It had been too much, which was another reason he felt guilty as he got comfortable in the chair at the mysterious sex doll shop.

  “So, are you ready to get started?” the young woman sitting across from him asked, her voice just a hair above a whisper, yet firm. “You may call me Emelia. And what may I call you?”

  “Roman, um, Roman Martin. And I’m sorry, where are the dolls exactly?”

  “We don’t want this to be a place where you just come in, see a bunch of dolls, and pick one, Mr. Martin. We want to be a place for you tell us what you’re looking for, so we can see if we have something that fits your expectations. If we don’t, we’ll have one made for you. All of our dolls are made in the Northern Alliance via telepathic instruction. It’s totally customized, and meant to be a customer-service-based experience.”

  “Okay. You want to know what I’m looking for, got it.”

  “There are many sizes available, many ages as well,” said Emelia. “Are you looking for someone young? Very young? Or would a woman who is a little more mature fit you better? What about a male?”

  “I don’t know—not anything young. Around my age, maybe just a little bit younger than me. Female.”

  It was a strange conversation, but Roman had already come this far, so he just went with it.

  “And you are twenty-five?”

  “A few years older than that, but thanks for the compliment.”

  “My pleasure,” she said, a smile flashing across her face and fading away. “How tall would you like her to be?”

  He thought of Celia, and how she was just a head shorter than him. He stood and indicated the height he was looking for, and the woman named Emelia blinked rapidly.

  She’s a type IV, Class E, he surmised as he watched her go to work.

  “Do you want a woman that looks like me?” she asked, something flashing behind her slightly violet eyes.

  “Sorry, I was just wondering about your exemplar classification. It’s a bad habit. Ignore it.”

  “Very well. Do you want a doll that resembles an exemplar?”

  “I mean, that’s not that important to me.”

  “How progressive of you,” she said with a tight smile. “And to answer your question, I am a Type IV, Class E and A.”

  “You have telepathic abilities as well?”

  Emelia nodded. “But they are very light. I can only sense moods and things related to a person’s moods. An empath.”

  “Then you know my mood.”

  “I do, but I don’t know what you’ve gone through today, and it isn’t my place to judge you. Nor will I look any deeper than I’ve already looked. I’m only here to serve you, Mr. Martin. I want to sell the perfect doll to you, and if that doll doesn’t already have a template, I want to create one.”

  “This is a very strange line of work you have found yourself in.”

  “It helps both non-exemplars and exemplars get exactly what they want. We have male and female dolls, versions of both, and everyone leaves here with something that completes them. Let’s continue the questions.”

  “By all means.”

  “What color hair would you like her to have?”

  Roman thought of Coma, and her almost white-blond hair. It was almost the same color as his, and if he was going to get another one, he wanted her to have something different.

  “Red hair.”

  “Red hair. Long, short, curly, straight? How would you like it?”

  “I’ve never really thought of that,” he told her. “To be honest, I thought I would just see some and be able to pick one out.”

  “Do you prefer chocolate, vanilla, basil, or cinnamon?”

  “Cinnamon.”

  “If you could be any type of exemplar, which type would you be?”

  “Type V,” he said, without any hesitation.

  “God power, huh?”

  “Ever met one?”

  “I have not. You?”

  “The other day.”

  “Odd. I was under the impression that very few existed.”

  “I can report back that they are indeed real.”

  “Moving on,” Emelia said, her violet eyes oscillating with color, “would you rather lie on a wooden, metal, or concrete surface?”

  “Wooden.”

  “What color eyes you prefer?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Are you sure?”

  �
�Yours are nice.”

  “What type of body would you like?” Before he could answer, she took a bound notebook out of the sleeve attached to her sofa chair. “You can choose from here—top first, then bottom. Also, do you have any requirements for hands or feet?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Roman flipped through the book for a moment, looking at pages upon pages of breasts. It was weird, but it made sense, and eventually he settled on a pair that he liked with pointed nipples, a bit larger than Coma’s. He then moved to the section of the binder with lower halves. He chose one with some serious curvage, then handed the book back to the woman.

  “Not a bad selection at all. Would you prefer to look at art, make art, or destroy art?”

  “Look at.”

  “If it were raining, and you didn’t have an umbrella, would you find something to cover your head with as you ran through the rain?”

  “I would just run. Faster that way.”

  “White, cream, or beige?”

  “Aren’t they similar?”

  “Please answer the question, Mr. Martin.”

  “Cream.”

  “Last question, and I must say, you’ve done very well so far.”

  “Thank you, um…”

  “Emelia.”

  “Emelia, that’s right.”

  She paused for a moment to regain control over the conversation. “Are you the type of person that likes masks and other fantasy superhero outfits?”

  “I have no preference here.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Who doesn’t want to be an exemplar?”

  “I am an…” Roman gulped. “I mean, I get what you’re saying. That kind of stuff is fine by me.”

  “Great.” Emelia stood and placed her hands behind her back. “I need to check our stock. In the meantime, if you will wait here, I will have tea brought to you.”

  “That isn’t necessary.” But by the time he said this, a door had opened at the back of the room and another woman, this one with a veil covering the bottom of her face, stepped out holding a silver platter. Sitting on the platter was a pot of tea and a porcelain glass.

  This woman, who wore an outfit similar to Emelia’s aside from the veil, poured a cup of tea for him in a precise, practiced way.

  “Thank you,” Roman said. The woman offered him a slight bow, smiled with her eyes, and began discussing payment options.

  Roman stared at the doll Emelia had chosen, feeling a strange affinity for it. It didn’t look like Celia, but there was something about the doll that reminded him of her, a softness to its face.

  As he had requested, she had long red hair, and she wore a bandanna around her neck that went with the rest of her outfit. It was a skin-tight exemplar outfit, split by a V-neck that revealed large swaths of her skin, with a belt sitting on her hips.

  Even though she wasn’t animated, she looked entirely real, and Roman had to keep an eye on his power dial to make sure he hadn’t actually animated her.

  She was in heels, and rather than carry the lifeless doll out, they’d actually sat her in a chair and rolled her out.

  “What you think?” Emelia asked.

  “It’s interesting.”

  She bit her lip. “Is that all you can say about it?”

  “I don’t really know how to feel about it, to be honest with you. I’ve never seen one that looks this real, though. It’s uncanny. But, yes, I’m impressed and she’s perfect. I’ll take it. Was that response better?”

  “That is an adequate response. And since you know that I’m an empath, I concur that seeing this doll has lightened your mood. Would you like it to be transported to your dwelling now? Or would you prefer to schedule a delivery?”

  “No, it can come now. Actually, give me just a few minutes to get set up at my home.”

  “And your home address is the same as your billing address?”

  “It is,” Roman said, mentally ordering a teleporter.

  “Don’t you want to touch her?”

  “No, not at the moment. But I am very satisfied with her.”

  The teleporter appeared, a cloud of smoke billowing off his body. He was a heavy man with long hair, and after a quick greeting and one more look at Emelia, the two of them ported away to Roman’s apartment.

  Coma came out of the bedroom with a smile on her face. She had fixed her mask using what looked to be a portion of one of Roman’s ties.

  For a moment, Roman wondered where she had learned to stitch, but then he remembered it was something he had picked up when he was younger, and it apparently had been imbued into her.

  “We have a visitor coming.”

  “Should I get on the couch?” asked Coma.

  “Not all visitors that come here are into that,” he told her, quietly chastising himself because it was technically his fault she assumed this. “In fact, that won’t be the case most of the time.”

  “What kind of visitor?”

  “Another one of you.”

  Her eyebrows rose behind her mask. “Another creation?”

  “That’s the plan; I’m going to create another one of you. I want you to be nice to her, and friendly.”

  “Sure, I can be nice and friendly.”

  A purple poof in the center of his living room indicated that a different teleporter had arrived. The female teleporter held the lifelike doll in her arms.

  “Where would you like me to set her?” she asked, no judgement whatsoever on her face.

  “The couch will do,” he told the woman, and as soon as she set the doll on the couch, she disappeared in another purple flash.

  “Are you ready for this?” Roman asked Coma.

  “I hope she’s nice.”

  After a breath in to steady himself, Roman took one more look at his power dial, then raised his hand over the red-haired doll.

  He thought of his wife, her personality, her constant happiness and the way she always smiled, even through turmoil. He thought of how relaxed she was, how open, how engaging she could be, and he thought of the little slivers of him that had been modified because of her kind behavior—the fighter she’d tamed, molded.

  Roman pressed this feeling out of the palm of his hand and into the doll, and as he opened his eyes, he saw that she too had opened hers.

  “Where am I?” she asked, her violet eyes flitting across the room.

  “You are here with us,” Coma told her, jumping to the task of greeting his new creation. “I am Coma. What’s your name?”

  “Celia,” Roman said, choking back a sob. Now animated, there was less about the doll that resembled his wife than he had intended, but there was something there, and as she sat up and looked around the room, he saw a very small hint of his soon-to-be-deceased spouse, something that shook him to the very core.

  Roman was by her side in a moment, her hand in his. Coma also approached, placing her hand on Roman’s shoulder.

  “She’s pretty, beautiful.”

  “Thank you.” The newly animated doll touched her chest. “And you said my name was Celia, right? It’s a nice name.”

  “No, that’s not a good name for you,” he started to say.

  “I think it is pretty,” said Coma.

  “I’d like to keep the name Celia,” said the newly animated sex doll.

  “Right,” Roman told her, tears forming. Again with the guilt, but this time it was mixed with the surprised fascination that he could actually do something like this. One glance down at his power dial and he saw that he was using a good amount of power now, but less than he’d thought it would take.

  “Welcome to our world,” Coma said as she approached Celia.

  She stared down at Celia for a moment, an indecipherable look on her face. Finally, she stuck her hand out, helping Celia to her feet. It only took Celia a moment to get stable, even though she was wearing impossibly tall high heels.

  Roman’s focus again hopped from the doll to his power dial. Red is dead…

  He didn’t feel as
drained as he’d felt previously. Even though his red bar was one fourth of the way from maxing out, he didn’t feel as much strain as before. Sure, his heart was beating rapidly, but with a few more concentrated breaths, he was able to bring that down a little as well.

  He wondered for a moment what Ava would think.

  He would tell her about it the next time he saw her, but he still planned to keep his other discovered ability secret. The fact that he could now modify documents was something he didn’t want anyone knowing about.

  “I’m happy to be here,” Celia said in a sweet, singsong voice. Her voice was higher than Coma’s, a lithe sound that relaxed Roman with each word she spoke. “Will you give me a tour? Will you explain to me more about this place?” she asked Coma. “I see it has recently been cleaned.”

  “Sure, and I’m the one who cleaned it. Roman told me not to, but I got bored.” Coma took her hand and the two moved around the apartment, Roman’s first creation talking about the space and what she’d done to rearrange it.

  Sitting down on one of the chairs in his living room, Roman brought his elbows to his knees, cupping his face with his hands. Again, those feelings of guilt and remorse came to him, and he pushed them away, deciding to focus on the present and its strangeness.

  “Roman can give anything life,” Coma explained to Celia, both of them now in the kitchen. “For most objects, he just gives them enough life to move around, or an instruction for what he wants them to do. With you and me, he has actually given us intellect, and this intellect comes from him, so I understand parts about this world that I never actually experienced. He has also given us some of his emotion. Right, Roman?”

  “Yes,” he said from the living room.

  “Is that how I know that we’re in Centralia?” Celia asked.

  “That’s exactly how you know that. And like me, you probably understand a few things about Roman’s life, too. Maybe not everything. Like your name, for example. Do you understand where your name comes from? I learned more about this when cleaning and going through the medical papers.”

  “His wife.”

  “I’ve never met her, but she sounds like she’s great. He also has a friend named Harper, who I enjoyed meeting last night.”