Dolly, Part 1

by Eva

(As usual, a fantasy story for responsible adults only.)

I could feel the waves of contempt and mocking pity for me from the three couples sat at the large polished table as the lawyer handling Aunt Esther's will read out the last part. Three couples looking at me and smirking and sneering as the woman read aloud: "And for my favourite niece, Amanda, I leave my most treasured possession, my dolly."

Her small house and her car had been sold and – along with what was in her bank account – the money divided between the three sour faced, money-grasping couples. Even my aunt's few paintings and antiques had been parceled out among them. I could see the three couples exchange glances that they had done so well and I so badly: I had got a doll and they had got everything else.

I wasn't angry or jealous and the dolly would be fine by me. I wasn't after my aunt's money and these scheming, grasping relatives hunched over the table in the lawyer's office were welcome to it – or what was left of it as some money had gone to charities already.

I missed my aunt and if work hadn't taken me far away in the last years of her life I would have been with her when she fell ill. I had written to her often and she back, and at least I knew that her final years had been very happy. As if she had come to terms with something wonderful in herself.

And, as far as I knew not one of the three men and three women had made any effort to see her in that time, or even call her. But as Aunt Esther had said to me years ago, they were her children by curse and she never really liked any of them and liked their married partners even less.

Now, the will had been dealt with and I had a dolly to remember my aunt by. Well, that was fine by me. If it was Aunt Esther's most treasured possession I would treasure it too.

The meeting broke up. Uncle Walter, a particularly pudgy faced man, made his way over to me. "That doll, could always sell it on e-bay." He seemed to think this was funny. "E- bay," he repeated inanely. "E-bay!"

"If you ask me," said Uncle Graham, "you shouldn't even have been here, Ms Brooks," he gave a contemptuous snort. He was a chauvinist pig of the first water and clearly disapproved of "Ms" as a title. "You weren't a real relative like us, were you? A niece from her other marriage." No, Uncle Grim, I thought to myself – and you are so miserable it must hurt to breathe.

Esther's other marriage. The one they all resented as she started to be happy in that union before her second husband Paul died.

Uncle Tom's hatchet-faced wife, Selina, slid over and said something about it being quite fitting a child should get a dolly. I may have been 27 but I had long since stopped being a child. But then they were probably jealous of the fact I had a good 20 years on all of them, so I let it go. Just as I let them go, still exchanging suspicious looks as if maybe one of the other couples had got antiques that might be more valuable than the ones they had been given.

Selina's husband said nothing but simply tried to crane his head to look down my blouse as he passed me. Bless his porn-surfing, little dick ways.

The lawyer, a tall, straight-backed woman in her late fifties dressed in a navy blue suit, her grey-streaked hair swept back in a bun, came up to me. I knew she had been a close friend of my aunt for many years and when I had met her before she was always pleasant to me. "I am sorry for your loss, Amanda. Your aunt was a wonderful woman and she thought the world of you," she said with genuine conviction. "Esther believed that you would be very, very happy with dolly. I think you will love her too as she did."

"I am sure I will," I smiled at the woman. "My aunt never did anything but try to make people happy and I miss her terribly. I am sorry I couldn't be with her when she fell ill." I paused, looking round. "Can I take this dolly now?" I asked, imagining me walking out of the offices with a cardboard box under my arm.

"No," laughed the lawyer gently. "She isn't here. She is at my house, waiting for you." The woman handed me a business card with her home address on it. "Tonight at seven – please come for dinner if you can. Oh, there is one condition from the will that I can only tell you then, so it is important you come to my house. And alone is better."

I agreed.

"Good," said the woman. "Dolly will be waiting for you. I think she is just perfect and I am sure you and she will get along wonderfully. It's what your aunt wanted most of all."

"I'm sure," I said, wondering how a doll can make you happy. But, it was my aunt's doll and maybe even porcelain and pink bows in blonde curly hair can be pleasing in its own sweet way.

Mental note: not an it, apparently. A she. So this dolly must have been quite something.

---

Miss Holt – the lawyer – owned a large detached house in a leafy suburb. I pulled into the drive and she was at the door waiting.

"Perfect timing," she said as she greeted me. "You haven't eaten already, I hope."

I hadn't. Miss Holt was a pleasant woman and, out of her business suit, she looked good with her hair let down to her shoulders and wearing a kimono-style gown.

She led me into the house, looking quite excited. "This is such a special occasion," she purred, "so I have made sure dolly looks just as your aunt would have wished her to look." She threw open the living room door, and there was dolly, waiting for me.

I was right about the blonde curls – quite Victorian looking – and the pink bows so neatly tied on each side of her head. She had a Victorian smock-type pink and white gingham dress on with lace frills at the hem and sleeves. On her feet polished black shoes with white cotton socks. And her face was almost porcelain white but, as a dolly should have, almost unbearably cute – a remarkable statement as I am not a person to use the word 'cute' casually.

"Say Hello, Dolly," said Miss Holt, suppressing a smile that she had made a show-business type joke.

"Hello," said Dolly, brightly.

The nine year old little girl curtsied and smiled at me, and I stared so open mouthed she must have thought I was a half-wit. "Dolly," I managed to say when I regained control of my jaw. "It's... I mean, she's... A little girl."

"Of course," said Miss Holt, smiling even more. "What did you think Dolly was? A doll?"

Dolly laughed, and ran to me. She flung her arms round me and hugged my waist, head against my bust. "Esther said you were lovely," she said, "An' you are!"

Hesitantly, my shock still echoing through me, I put my hand on the little angel's head. Fingers into those soft curls. "My aunt..." I began, unsure what to say. "Um, you were hers?"

"Dolly was your aunt's special companion for the last four years of her life," sighed Miss Holt looking at me and this little girl approvingly. "I have been looking after her since... well, since she passed on." A beat. "Waiting for you to come back and claim her."

Dolly looked up, her big blue eyes on mine. "I know we are going to be good friends," she said. "Can I call you Mandy? Please?"

I shrugged. "Mandy. Amanda... doesn't matter much," I said. I was stroking the child's hair as I spoke, loving the feel despite the fact I had barely got over my astonishment at all this. Standing with a child pressed up to me, wondering what a special companion was. Hardly daring to think about it. "How did my aunt get... I mean, how did she meet Dolly?" I looked at Miss Holt, who seemed to be glowing.

"I will tell you over dinner," said the older woman.

"Come and sit next to me at the table," said Dolly excitedly, getting hold of my hand, pulling me towards what it took was the dining room. There's a chair right next to mine! I laid the table too!"

"Good girl," I said. And in a funny way I really meant it.

---

"So that's the story you see," said Miss Holt as we finished the meal. "Your dear aunt met this lovely little girl in quite unusual circumstances and as a consequence they were very much attracted to each other. It seemed only natural Dolly should live with Esther as she had no one else to turn to, nowhere to go. I made sure all the papers were legally binding and they were happy."

Dolly was sat to my side with her chair touching mine and her little hand in mine (it hadn't been easy eating one handed but the meal of chicken and rice was able to be eaten with just a fork) and now she looked up at me. "I really loved Esther, an' she loved me," said the child. "She bought me this dress an' said I was Victorian. Her little Victorian Dolly!"

"Your aunt was very keen Dolly stayed sweet and old-fashioned. Like her really." Miss Holt smiled at the two of us across the table. Yes, I reflected, Aunt Esther was old fashioned in lots of ways.

"An' I wear these Victorian knickers," said the girl, unselfconsciously sweeping back the hem of her skirt with her free hand and showing me.

I gasped at the move, and the fact that the girl's knickers were indeed an old-fashioned, bloomer style in white cotton with white lace at the legs. "I love these," said Dolly. "'Cos Esther loved me in them. Do you love them, Mandy?"

Love? How can you love bloomers? I smiled at the girl and felt something stir in me. Surely not indigestion, I thought. I looked at Miss Holt. "You know, it's remarkable that my aunt never told me about Dolly here."

"She didn't want to worry you," said Miss Holt as she started to clear up the plates, "but I think you might have got the distinct impression she was happy."

"I was really happy with her," bubbled Dolly next to me. She hadn't pulled down her dress yet and I stared down at those knickers.

A thought hit me like a brick. At least, it felt like it was big and heavy and important. "Miss Holt, I know I shouldn't ask this but... My aunt wasn't... you know." I couldn't think of the words to say what had almost flattened me.

"A lesbian?" The older woman grinned. "Not until she found this angel," she said. "Then she embraced Sapphic love like it was her destiny." She smiled at Dolly, who was smiling too and not the least embarrassed or puzzled.

"Esther and me were lesbian lovers," said the little girl, so matter-of-factly I felt another brick hit me.

"Lovers?" I asked, my voice little more than a whisper. "How...?"

"You know, silly," chuckled the child, amused at my lack of knowledge of what lovers did. "We went to bed and kissed and cuddled and played and she taught me how to do things. Nice kissy things."

"But my aunt was..." My head swam at the revelation. I wanted to say she wasn't gay, not after two marriages, but that was clearly wrong. And she wasn't young either. "She was, well, too old for that stuff." I couldn't quite remember how old she was, but it was old.

"She was sixty four," said Miss Holt as she moved towards the kitchen. "Ice cream for sweet alright with you, Amanda?"

"I loved her" chirped Dolly, "An' she loved me." Then the girl's face fell serious. "She said, before she died, that it would make her very happy if you would love me, Mandy. So I hope you will." The child gripped my hand tight, eyes on me. If she wasn't saying it in so many words, her look said: "Please."

I sat and stared and tried to organise my thoughts. A woman of my aunt's age was a late- blossoming lesbian? Okay, put that down to unexpected. But with a lover as young as Dolly? Now that had to be put in the surely-not box. Miss Holt came back into the room with two bowls of ice-cream, chocolate and vanilla and Dolly looked happy.

"Miss Holt," I said, trying to clear the fog in my head, trying to separate the impossible from the solid, the real from the shadows. "Are you gay?"

"Of course I am, dear. Any sensible woman is at least bi these days. Actually, history is on our side. Every good woman is or was lesbian and has been for thousands of years, though some just got a bad press from male historians who think dicks matter."

"But the law –" I began.

"Is an ass, always has been. Made by men who are jealous of women being free and definitely not wanting mature women and little girls having fun. Falling in love. Trying to stop females being happy. Wanting to force them into merely baby-making duties so men could waste lives on wars for their glory. Sorry, high horse rearing up there." She looked apologetic as she shook her head. "Anyway I deal with wills and probate, not the rest of it."

"And you didn't want to love Dolly?" The words came straight out without intervention of brain. Dolly for her part snickered but hadn't let go of me.

Miss Holt laughed. "No! I mean, Dolly is gorgeous and sweet and if I hadn't got my own little lover I am sure I would love her as she deserves." Dolly, for her part, looked pleased she might be considered good enough to share Miss Holt's bed.

On a day of shocks and surprises, the thought of Miss Holt in bed with a little girl was almost too much. But then, she was good looking I had to concede. Mature, but appealing.

"Miss Holt's jus' looking after me," explained Dolly, being very patient with a stupid woman like me. "Until you decide."

"And if I don't?" More brainless words. My speciality at the moment.

"Then we shall have to find a home for Dolly." Miss Holt pursed her lips. "Or if she prefers, she can stay here though I will have to send her to school as I have to work."

"Not school," pouted Dolly, looking upset for the first time.

"Esther," explained Miss Holt, "preferred home schooling for Dolly."

I nodded, recalling letters from my aunt complaining at the standards of education today compared with her time. She had been a teacher and felt her pupils should always be smart, well-behaved and wanting to know more – even if they weren't naturally clever. I would imagine Dolly would be well educated in an old fashioned way. More than competent in the three R's. I could imagine the child sat at a wooden desk and practicing her handwriting as my aunt stood over her, kind but firm when it came to the size of the loop on descenders. I also had a vision, quite unexpected, of my aunt leaning down and rewarding Dolly with a little kiss for doing so well at her work.

Little kiss? Who was I kidding? In my mind I could see my aunt's tongue deep in the little girl's mouth, hearing a faint moan from their throats. It was a vision that sent a strange pulse through me.

And did they stop at kissing, however deep and long? Did Dolly's hands reach out and find–

I fought back the thoughts and the way my body seemed to grow red hot with a shiver.

"So, Dolly's welfare is down to me," I said, trying not to think how my tongue would feel in the girl's mouth and not look into those big appealing eyes of the nine year old at my side. I could appreciate why my aunt would have felt so attracted to that gaze. And her little, pretty lips for that matter.

"In your absence, then it is me." Miss Holt was relaxed but clearly willing to face up to reality. "I was charged in the will with ensuring Dolly's future, though, as you might agree, it wasn't a good idea to read that part out to your relatives. A particularly unappealing bunch of money-grubbers, if I may say so."

"You may say," I said, wrinkling my nose. "And I would insist you add the phrase 'Stinking pigs with their fat ugly noses in the trough.'"

Sweet little Dolly laughed out loud at this, and said: "Esther was right an' I really do like you, Mandy."

The doorbell rang and Miss Holt broke into a knowing look. "Ah, that will be Emma," she said. Then added: "My little lover."

If I had tried to ring fence any thoughts about women and little girls kissing and having sex, then my careful security system was about to be trampled down. Miss Holt left the room, the front door opened and I heard voices with another woman saying, "Behave now, Em," and the front door closing.

Moments later, Miss Holt came back into the dining room holding the hand of a girl barely older than Dolly – a little girl with long black hair and a distinctly oriental look across her eyes. She was dressed in a yellow shirt and stone-wash jeans with small patterns of sequins on the legs. She looked almost as nice as Dolly. Considerably more modern but not quite as appealing, I concluded.

"This," said Miss Holt, with a note of pride, "is Emma. My own little lover. Emma, this lady is Amanda."

"Oh yes," chuckled the girl, her almost black eyes widening. "Dolly's lady."

I stared at her. "Lady? Well..." I gulped loudly. "But I heard a woman's voice at the door. Not yours."

"That was Emma's mother, Su, delivering her daughter for the evening," Miss Holt said.

"So, this Su... she thinks you are babysitting her daughter?" I was by now clinging to all sorts of wreckage in my emotional understanding.

Emma and Miss Holt laughed together. "No," said Emma. "My mummy knows I am going to bed with my lady!" And then, as if I didn't understand what this might mean, she added with a twinkle in her eye: "For cuddles and sex."

"I wanted her here with us so you could see how natural all this is, for a woman to love a girl," explained Miss Holt.

It was at that moment that Miss Holt's gown slipped open. Perhaps it was deliberate, perhaps not, but the front opened and I could see the woman wearing a black lace teddy underneath with hold-up stockings. A woman dressed to please, and the person to be thus pleased was right next to her and almost forty years younger.

I stared. Her little lover, who was beaming at what she could see on the woman as she reached for the mature body in the black lace teddy.

It would be fair to say at that point the logical-emotion lifebelt – the one I thought was in reach as I floundered among unknown breakers – simply sank without trace before me.

Continued in Part 2