maybeElse

(Originally posted May 27, 2023)

“Miss,” the doll plaintively asks, “what are all of these pills?”

“They're vitamins, dear. Here, let me get you something to wash them down ...”

She stares at the bowl before her as she bustles off.

Some of them look like vitamins, true, little oddly shaped gummies and tiny pressed pills: familiar sights from all the other times she's been given supplements to keep her nice and healthy and to help her hair grow into beautiful curling locks.

But then there are others.

Quite a few of the pills look distinctly hand-made, imperfect presses and half-crushed gelcaps holding only a few specks of sparkling powder; there are some that look like little fishies and one that's inexplicably molded in the shape of a (slightly squished) flower.

That's odd, the doll thinks, though her thought becomes more of a question with every moment it lingers in her little clockwork mind. It's odd, isn't it?

She's still staring when her witch finally returns with a glass of peach juice—her favorite!

“Here, dear,” the witch says, “now don't dawdle! I've got other things to do today.”

The first few handfuls go down smoothly, but everything goes wrong when one of the pills lingers on her tongue and she tastes it—it's wrong, like a bitter little piece of rot and vomit and, and—

She gags, chokes, makes a horribly undignified sound that earns her a glare and a muttered “what is it now?”

With her throat spasming and muscles tensing and stomach threatening to rebel she sits there, trying not to move, trying not to draw any more attention—

The cup spills as her groping hand struggles to find it, sending a flood of cool sticky juice spilling across the table and dripping down onto her freshly laundered dress and soaking through to paint her smooth skin beneath—

”... look what you've done,” her witch hisses.

She blushes, still choking, trying to swallow—but her hand's on her mouth, her head's being tilted back, another against her throat—and as she stares up into her witch's angry glare she feels the last pills slide down into her stomach as her bladder releases in a hot flood.

Her witch's nose wrinkles at the smell.

“Disgusting little thing. I don't know why I keep you around, really ...” she shakes her head in a gesture of resigned disdain that the doll knows she's practiced. “Clean up this mess and let me know before you get into the shower, okay?”

“Y-yes, miss.”

“And do a good job. Show me that you're not entirely useless.”

She can't bring herself to answer with words, just nods. Thankfully that's good enough for her witch this time; often it would not be.

All the cleaning supplies are just where she left them.

She's almost on autopilot as she cleans, her body moving without thought. The specifics of the mess may vary but it's always the same actions—mopping and spraying and wiping it up, throwing her dress and panties into the washer, woozily staring as she stumbles into the table ...

She's almost done when the pills really hit, her coordination slowly decaying into big imprecise movements that she can't find it in her to care about, the ground swaying beneath her feet until she finds herself stretched out on the cold and mostly clean tile floor.

She's a floor doll now, she thinks to herself with a giggle, not a chair doll or a cleaning doll. A floor doll! Dolly going floor, nice clean floor, cozy floor,

This is her place and it's where she is and if she wants to roll around she can and everything's so sparkly ...

Her witch finds her like that half an hour later.

She giggles when her boot pokes her in the side, a little nudge sending her into mirthful paroxysms that fade away into a squirming gasp when her witch picks her up by the neck with a sigh.

“Should have known those would hit before you were done, doll. But this is fine too.”

She leads her (no longer a floor doll! a following-along doll, or, or, maybe a stress-toy doll? her witch is squeezing her neck so very hard ...) to a shower already steaming with humid heat.

Doll's hardly able to hold herself upright (why can't she still be floor doll?), but it feels so good when her witch lifts her in and the hot water cascades down her body. She's so light-headed, almost floating, and her witch's hands are everywhere—

Tangled in her hair and running rough washclothes across her skin and rubbing her with fragrant soap and squeezing her neck until she mewls for air—

For a moment, as her witch's hand's relax, she sees a toothy smile that seems almost large enough to swallow her up in one bite.

It's just a moment, though.

Because she's drowning in sensation, can hardly breath, her body crushed flat between warm tiles and her witch's burning heat. The tide's lapping at her in rhythmic, insistent bursts, pressing into her with every breath she takes; someone's moaning.

She's not really there, isn't there at all, isn't inside her body: she's somewhere better, somewhere impossible, somewhere where she'll never need to be anything at all—

It's like she's unfolding again and again, like she's a wave building up to higher and higher heights, like—

When her witch is done with her she leaves her on the shower floor, liquid oozing out from between her legs. The water's cold now, almost on the edge of chilly, and that mild discomfort slowly brings her back to herself.

She's not quite sure what just happened.

But she's used to that. Dolls have to be, don't they? So she does what she assumes she's supposed to do: finishes showering and rubs balm on her aching body and turns the shower off and curls up in a soft fluffy towel. Cozy towel doll, nice and warm and dry ...