The Dollhouse Society Ultimate Boxset: 21 Books & 5 Shorts in the Dollhouse Society Series

by Eden Myles

  “You sound tired.”

  “I’ve been doing a lot of editing of late,” I said, and then regretted it. Would that make her think I was worried about her and Dad and their money problems? Shit.

  “Well, I hope it’s not all work,” Mom said and laughed nervously. I knew what she was implying. Like my dad, she was desperately hoping to catch me in bed with a girlfriend. It was almost a mania with them of late.

  I started unwedging a fresh pair of jeans from my too-small dresser, then thought better of it. If I went to Mr. Karenina’s house in my usual economic garb of blue jeans and a button-down shirt, I was going to look like some backwoods hick. So instead, I started going through my closet, which was filled with uniform clothes, hoping to find something that was slightly more sophisticated.

  “I’m sorry to have awakened you, Danny, but I wanted to share the good news. Jason finally proposed to Chloe last night.”

  “Oh wow,” I said, and dropped the pair of trousers I’d been examining. My sister Chloe had announced her pregnancy three months ago. At the time, she and Jason had still been trying to decide whether or not to tie the knot. But I guess they’d finally made their decision. “How’s dad taking it?”

  “He’s okay with it. I mean, Jason wasn’t his first pick, of course, but he’s happy he’s doing the right thing by Chloe.”

  “Mom, that’s so old fashioned,” I complained, sitting down on the foot of my bed.

  “You know your dad.” She paused a moment, and then said, “How are things with you, Danny?”

  “I’m good. Busy. I’ve got a weekend job.”

  “Another one?”

  “I want to get you guys a little extra cash. And now that Chloe’s getting married…well, I’ll need to come up with something.”

  “You’ve already sent way too much…”

  “I want to send it along. It makes me happy, okay?” I let my breath out. “You still looking for a job?”

  “Oh, I got part time work down in the Sunshine Donut shop, didn’t I tell you?”

  I winced at the news. My mom’s arthritis was so bad it would be a miracle if she lasted a month, but before I could say anything, she changed the subject. “Your dad’s been asking after you. He wants to know if you’ll make it down for the wedding. Chloe doesn’t want to wait until she can’t fit in her gown, so its next month. Can you make it?”

  “I’ll make it. Just send me an email with the details and I’ll figure something out.”

  “Any chance you might bring someone with you? It would be exciting to have a New York girl among the clan.”

  “I’ll think about it. I have a friend, Sheri. She might like to go.”

  “Good friend?”

  “Mom!”

  “Just asking. I have to tell your dad something.”

  I checked the clock again and bit my bottom lip. “I gotta run, Mom. That job won’t wait.”

  “What kind of job?” she asked. “Not that awful bistro you served at last summer…?”

  “No, I’m taking care of a disabled guy.” And that’s all I said. We said our goodbyes and I hung up. I hastily assembled a halfway decent outfit with pieces from my school uniforms, brushed my teeth, ran my electric razor around my chin, and was out the door in ten minutes flat.

  On the bus trip over to the West Village, I kept thinking about my mom and her insistence that I bring a girl with me to Chloe’s wedding. Sheri would do it if I asked, and it would take care of all my parents’ worries. A simple, easy solution.

  And one that was going to make me feel like the biggest liar ever.

  ***

  I was late getting to Mr. Karenina’s house, and Maria was sure to make mention of it. I knew Mr. Karenina was out back on the pavilion, having his morning tea, so he didn’t see. I hoped Maria wouldn’t tell him, though she probably would.

  “I move nothing!” she insisted before stomping off toward the kitchen.

  I rolled my eyes but dutifully started walking the rooms. Maria was convinced I was trying to get her fired, but it was Mr. Karenina who’d insisted I check to make certain there were no tripping hazards in his house. I thought it was a reasonable request.

  After I’d scoured the bottom floor, I went upstairs and did the same. I found a few items that looked like potential hazards, so I marked them down in a notebook. Otherwise, the house seemed pretty secure. I was starting to get a feel for the layout of the rooms, and now I saw what Mr. Karenina had been complaining about last week. Sometimes Maria didn’t put an item back in its proper place after dusting or polishing it. That was fine for a person who could see, but in Mr. Karenina’s case, he relied on there being no alterations in his rooms or living patterns. I moved the items into what I thought were their proper places, then I took a few minutes to sit on his bed in the master bedroom and run my hand over the satiny wine-red bedspread, wondering what it would feel like against my bare skin.

  “Daniel!”

  I realized Mr. Karenina was waiting for me in the front hall and rushed downstairs. I looked my gentleman over, starting with the trim, dark suit that clung to his wide shoulders and slim hips, then the dark hair swept away from his faintly cruel, aristocratic face, and finally, those nearly black, exotic eyes, and felt my entire insides unravel and turn to jelly. I hated that all he had to do was say my name, and all I could do was tremble wordlessly like a doofus.

  “We’re going now,” he said, his voice clipped and formal, his heavy leather valise at his side.

  “Yes, sir,” I managed.

  He smirked faintly then. “I’m happy you’re remembering your etiquette, Daniel. That’s good.”

  During the week, he had sent me a number of emails. At first, I wondered how a blind man could send email, but then I looked it up online and found out there were special computers that utilized Braille just for the seeing impaired. I did not know that. Anyway, his emails had been brief and detached, yet extremely detailed. He had provided me with instructions on how I should address him, how I should dress and conduct myself in public, even little personal things, like how I should groom, what scents I could wear in his presence, which is to say almost nothing. That was a big thing with him. No colognes or aftershave lotions, and only unscented soaps, lotions and deodorants. I thought he was probably very sensitive to strong, manufactured aromas.

  He took my arm and I, as his human seeing-eye dog, led him toward the waiting car. On the way over to the NorthStar offices, I detailed some of the hazards I’d found in the house.

  “It’s good of you to have written those down,” he said. “I’ll show them to Maria.” He angled his body toward me and said, “We’ll be making a brief stop before we go to the offices this morning.”

  “Okay,” I said, putting the notebook away. I sat beside him, almost but not quite touching him. He didn’t like me being too forward, but so far, he hadn’t done anything. That worried me a little. It was almost like last week hadn’t happened.

  We stopped at a very exclusive men’s boutique in SoHo. Mr. Karenina unfolded his cane and I walked him inside. The desk concierge became excited to see him and offered to show him to the wet bar. Wow, a boutique with a wet bar.

  “Thank you,” Mr. Karenina said in his typical stiff, remote manner. “I’d like you to take care of my young friend here, if you would.”

  “Yes, of course,” the concierge said.

  “I want a full run,” Mr. Karenina said. “Formal and informal.”

  The concierge stood up a little straighter, as if Mr. Karenina had demanded he drop and give him twenty. “Very good, sir.”

  The concierge handed me over to Mr. Cummings, an older man in a perfect suit who was also Mr. Karenina’s personal tailor. He took me into a private fitting room and started doing all kinds of measurements. Then he put me in an unseamed dummy suit and started pinning it so it was almost, but not quite, too tight. Happily, he didn’t ask too many questions, and those few he did ask I was able to answer with monosyllables.

  Finall
y, Mr. Cummings brought out a dark, finished suit in plastic and said, “The suits will take at least three weeks, but Mr. Karenina requested that I outfit you for today. Is this acceptable, sir?”

  I looked the suit over. It was fine and dark, with a very dark, almost invisible, pinstripe running through the fabric. When I saw the price tag, I felt about five strands of my hair turn grey. I almost said no, then just nodded dumbly. I was afraid Mr. Karenina would take insult if I turned it down. Mr. Cummings put it on me and made some small adjustments at the sleeves and cuffs with a kind of handheld sewing machine device that looked like a giant stapler. Mr. Karenina appeared in the fitting room and Mr. Cummings looked up and said, “Did you want to approve of the fitting, sir?”

  Mr. Karenina navigated to the kneeler and knelt down to run his hands over my new suit. He shamelessly tugged on the uber-expensive material to see how it fitted me. His hand brushed my cock as he tested the fit of the trousers, whether intentionally or not. “It’s a bit loose in the hips and chest,” he complained. That surprised me because it felt all right to me. I wondered how fitted the finished suits would be, if I’d be able to walk in them.

  “I could make further adjustments,” Mr. Cummings offered.

  “It’ll be fine for now,” Mr. Karenina declared. We didn’t talk money, but people like Mr. Karenina probably had running accounts, which was good because I didn’t really want to know just how much money he’d dropped on those suits this morning.

  Back in the car, it bothered me more than I liked. “You didn’t have to do that,” I finally blurted out.

  “Do what?” Mr. Karenina asked. He sat, staring blindly ahead, without touching me again.

  “That was a lot of money.”

  “It won’t come out of your salary, Daniel, I assure you.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “It’s my money to spend.” He turned to look at me through his dark glasses, his gaze falling to a spot somewhere nearer my lap than my face. “Are you going to resist me each time I try to spoil you a little?”

  “No, sir…I just…I guess I’m not used to this.”

  “You’re proud,” he said. “That’s not a bad thing.”

  “I was raised not to take handouts.”

  “This isn’t a handout. You’re being rewarded for pleasing me, for giving me your virginity, which is perhaps the rarest gift I’ve ever received. You’ve earned every stitch of those suits.”

  My cheeks burned a little as I thought about that, but it didn’t make me feel much better about myself. What had Sheri called me? A rent boy.

  When we reached the NorthStar building, we repeated the pattern of last week. I walked Mr. Karenina up to the penthouse suite where his offices were located. Before he left me, he turned to me and brushed his hand briefly across my cheek so I was horribly conscious of who might be looking and said, “I won’t be very long today. Just a few matters to clear up. Then we’ll have the rest of the day to get to know each other a little better.”

  I spent the next few hours in the employee café, trying to work on a paper on my netbook and failing horribly. My mom had sent the email detailing my sister’s wedding. It was the middle of next month—wow, that didn’t give me much time to book a flight and put everything on hold here. My stomach, already in jumbles, became even more nervous. Taking a deep breath to steady my jittery nerves, I PM’ed Sheri about it on Skype and she immediately wrote back:

  Sounds like fun. But are your parents aware…?

  God no. They’d kill me.

  Daniel…just tell them.

  I can’t. I just can’t. My dad’s in cancer recovery. I can’t drop a bomb like this on him!

  Take your boyfriend. Then they’ll know and you won’t have to say anything.

  R U nuts?

  Maybe I won’t go. Then you’ll HAVE to take your stud.

  Don’t do this to me. If I don’t show up with a girl, Dad will know. Also, my old GF is Chloe’s maid of honor. Ugh.

  What happened with your old GF?

  We did it but it sucked BIG time.

  You mean you couldn’t get it up.

  No…I mean, U know. I could do it but only cause I was thinking of something else.

  Did you cream her?

  Sheri!

  You didn’t cream her. OK. So she knows…?

  Shit. Why do you have to be so crass?

  I’m not crass, Danny-boy, I’m honest. ;-)

  She doesn’t know…she just thinks I’m shy or something. And she’s bugged me over the years, like she wants to get with me again.

  Your ex is stalking you?

  Sort of. If I go there without a girl, I just know she’ll pounce, and then I’ll have to tell her the truth, and in a town like mine? Jesus…everyone will know by sundown.

  And so what if they do? Teh ghey isn’t a crime, last time I checked.

  It’s not New York over there, Sheri. It’s 1873, U know?

  Sheri said she’d think about it and logged off. About an hour later, Mr. Karenina showed up to collect me. The butterflies in my stomach had turned into a swarm.

  Back in the Lincoln, I sat with Mr. Karenina boxing me in against the seat. With his business taken care of, he was feeling friendly and playful. He ran his fingers up the back of my neck, buried them in the short hairs, and leaned down to tease my lips apart with his tongue. Meanwhile, his knee nudged my legs apart and his free hand went to my knee, squeezed gently, and then moved up my leg, inching toward my aching cock. The trousers were more fitted than I generally liked my pants, and the extra pressure in the crotch was doing nothing for my hard-on. He licked all along the seam of my lips before kissing the corner of my mouth. He tasted like scotch and peppermint. His teeth nipped me, and he said in a low, intimate voice, “I trust you were a good boy this week, Daniel? No accidents?”

  “No,” I said, and squirmed uncomfortably under the pressure of his hand gripping my thigh so tightly. “Well, just one. But it wasn’t my fault.”

  “How was it not your fault, Daniel?”

  “I came in my sleep once, but just a little.”

  “I told you not to come without my permission.”

  “I didn’t mean to! It just happened.”

  Mr. Karenina looked down upon me sternly. “What were you dreaming about?”

  My ears burned. “You.”

  “And what was I doing?”

  “I don’t want to say.”

  His fingers moved in little circles against the back of my neck, raising shivers along my skin. The pain and pressure in my pants increased. “If you tell me, I won’t punish you for coming.”

  I couldn’t say it aloud, I just couldn’t. So I leaned up and whispered it in his ear. That pressed me close against him, against the hard plains of his body under the suit and the insistent pressure of his partially erect cock.

  “Why does that embarrass you?” he asked me with that intimate bedroom voice of his, almost brushing his words across my lips. “If it brings you pleasure, if it makes you come, then we must try it.”

  My ears burned just a little more. “I’ve never been that way.”

  “What way?”

  “The way I am with you.”

  He rewarded me with a deeper kiss, his tongue going deep and slickly wet inside my mouth. The hand that had been gripping my thigh relaxed and he moved it to press more directly against the front of my trousers. I squirmed under the pressure and groaned into his mouth. I had never been so hyperaware of my body, like every inch of it was covered in supersensitive little nerve endings. Just his breath touching my cheek was enough to make me wriggle against him.

  He forced my legs wider, undid my belt and brand new trousers, and slid his hand between my legs. I tried to close them, but he said, “No,” harshly against my lips. He boldly fondled my cock and balls, all that heat against heat, teasing me while warning me not to come without his permission. It was erotic torture. The need to come was so bad it hurt, but I didn’t want to ruin my new pants
.

  “You’re wonderfully tight and hard tonight, Daniel. Have you been saving it up for me like a good boy?”

  I bucked against his hand. “I want you to fuck me. I need to come, Mr. Karenina.”

  “What do we say, Daniel?”

  “Please, sir.”

  “No.” He withdrew his hand and zipped me back up. “Not yet. But soon.”

  I groaned in response.

  We stopped outside a Japanese day spa in midtown Manhattan and I walked Mr. Karenina inside on his orders. An elegantly beautiful Japanese woman dressed in an elaborate cheongsam stood at the front desk, speaking on the phone, but she cut the call short when she recognized Mr. Karenina, giving him the same ramrod, soldiery attention as the desk concierge and the tailor had. She came around and passed a few words with him in Japanese that I couldn’t follow.

  “Do you know a lot of languages?” I asked as we followed the woman down a brightly lit corridor to some changing room. I thought about how he had argued with Maria in Spanish that one time.

  “A few,” he said only, but didn’t elaborate. I couldn’t help but wonder about his past, how much he knew, and where he’d come from. There were times when he seemed so aloof, almost unconcerned about the world around him, and other times when his lust was almost insatiable, whether for food or sex.

  The Japanese woman led us into a vast, empty changing room done in all rustic Japanese tiles and divided by painted shoji screens. I could hear the tinkling sounds of soft Japanese music emanating from invisible speakers in the walls, and there was a small, manmade waterfall, and a pond with koi fish in it. I bent over the koi pond and watched the big orange fish surfacing while Mr. Karenina passed a few more words with the Japanese woman. Then she left, sliding a screen shut behind her.

  “I come here often, but just for the mineral springs, not for the massages,” Mr. Karenina explained as he began to undress. “Naoki is extremely skilled, but I’ve never much cared for strangers touching me. The mineral waters are incredibly relaxing, though.”