The Dollhouse by Amy

The year Gwen was four, she got a dollhouse. It was a birthday present from a well-meaning relative who didn't know her at all. It was beautiful, the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. "Look but don't touch," her parents had reminded her, but what four-year-old could resist a tiny Victorian mansion made just for her?

The second she'd touched it, it had melted, the electricity from her fingers turning the delicate metal twists of the staircase into a mess of edges and dripping stalactites.

The carefully molded dolls who had come with it melted into little puddles on the floor of the house.

Her parents bought her a new dollhouse after that. This one was not pretty, like the one she'd received as a gift. It was made of wood, painted with brightly-colored tempera paints. Not handmade, or at least, not by her parents; she was certain some poor family in a third world country was given three cents for the way each room was painted a specific Crayola color.

It had nothing on the beautiful dollhouse. She sat in front of it for hours, moving rough wooden dolls around the four rooms which she'd arbitrarily decided upon: kitchen, living/dining room, kids' room, parents' room.

The wooden dolls were clumsy and hard to handle, and sometimes they had to touch each other.

None of the wooden parents ever complained when one of the wooden children went for a hug.

Seventeen years later, she found herself sitting on her ass in jail.

The nice thing about prison is the way it's all about the electricity. The metal bars, the security cameras- there had never been a jail in the world that could hold Gwen Raiden.

Well, until now.

The thing about being obvious about being a freak? Sure, people are scared of you for a bit. But after a while, people start to treat you like a freak. And sometimes that means shoving you into the Special Section of the prison, with the other freaks who they don't trust around the normal prisoners.

It's like a game, except it sucks.

So she was sitting on her ass in the prison, twenty-two years old and nothing to do, nowhere to go, bored to death except for the part where death would probably be a welcome change. They offered her three meals a day (on paper plates, natch, with cardboard forks like the type they had in mental institutions) and a pillow and blanket (thrown on a mattress on a wooden frame) and no human contact whatsoever, just because the brain trusts finally figured out that she could kill anyone she got near with just a touch of her hand.

Of course, right now, she was much less likely to fry whoever she saw than to challenge them to, like, a marathon game of gin rummy.

To add insult to injury, there were cells on either side of her Plexiglas cage, but they were both empty. She'd sit for hours, her back to the wall with the window (a tiny one, about three feet above her head, but at least it let in some air sometimes if the wind was blowing the right way), and watch as nothing happened on either side of her. Sometimes members of the staff went into them, pretending to clean or fluff pillows. Sometimes they weren't even subtle, just staring at her.

She made faces at them, and held up hands threateningly, like she could do anything while she was in the cell. But they looked afraid, and always left.

Because Gwen's always been destined to be stuck alone, you know? That's just the way shit works.

It was a dark and stormy night and Gwen was asleep when the other girl moved in. She had the cell to Gwen's left- the right one was still empty- and one night Gwen was going to sleep in a vacuum and the next morning there was a dark-haired chick with eyes like fire sleeping naked in the bed in the room next to her, blanket sliding down her skin so that one of her nipples was exposed and Gwen could sit there, just watching her from her spot by the glass.

Not that she'd never seen nudity before, not that she hadn't gone through her dad's Playboys over summers home from boarding school, not that she hadn't hung around the girls' locker room longer than strictly necessary, watching the girls sluice the chlorine off their skin and laugh about the swim instructor and shit. But there's nudity and then there's this girl, and Gwen knew the difference enough to know to slide two fingers between her legs and pump until she came to the silent equivalent of a screaming orgasm.

Which, as these things go? Not the worst way to start the day.

She went back to sleep, then, nicely sated and not really willing to deal with anything. When she woke up again, though, the girl was awake, and dressed, and watching her. Eyes right by the glass, mouth fogging up the mirror at each exhale and almost clearing up every time she breathed in.

Gwen saw her and jumped back.

The girl smirked, shook her head, turned her back, and walked away.

Gwen's stomach quivered with need.

That night, she went to bed earlier than usual. She didn't want to watch the dark-haired girl fall asleep. It just felt... wrong, somehow. You don't masturbate about a girl and then watch her sleeping, she thought; that would cross the line from "fantasizing" into "stalking".

The next morning, she found the girl lying naked again. This time both nipples were exposed, and in the cool morning breeze they stood out, the areola held taut against paler skin. And Gwen had the oddest feeling that the girl wanted her to see her like that.

This time, after the orgasm washed over her, Gwen carefully changed out of her pyjamas and into underwear. When she fell asleep, she was careful to make sure that her bra and her stomach were exposed for the girl to see.

When she woke up, she could see the mark of the girl's breath against the window, but the girl sat on her bed across the room, barely seeming to notice her existence.

Of course.

The third morning the girl woke up when Gwen was watching. She had been asleep, the blanket tossed off her body, and Gwen could see nearly everything she wanted. She knew, for example, that the girl shaved. Or waxed. Or something else. But there was definitely lack of hair where hair might normally be. She knew that the girl was fucking toned. As she breathed, Gwen could see different muscles moving, and fuck if every last one of them wasn't damn near perfect. And third. Shit. Third.

She could see a piercing. Well, no, not so much feel it as sense it, the way her fingers fucking ached for it, because it was metal and because it was there. Just one piercing, a metal hoop. Fairly basic. But fuck.

If Gwen had something metal inserted down there? She'd never even fucking bother getting dressed.

Electricity has its perks, you know?

Three fingers were already buried up to the knuckle, pumping hard and fast as she watched the girl sleep, just imagining the feel of the metal as it-

"What the fuck are you doing?" Loudly. Loud enough to cut through soundproof Plexiglas. Not a calm voice. Angry, or maybe turned on. Gwen couldn't really tell.

Okay. So the girl had woken up. Gwen forced herself to make eye contact with her and slowly pulled her fingers out from between her thighs. And then, as the girl watched, took a gamble, and slowly brought her fingers up to her lips.

The girl groaned. Gwen smiled.

"I'm Gwen," she said, and at the girl's blank stare, shouted. "Gwen." Pointed to herself.

The girl smiled at her, waggled her eyes a little bit, said her name like it was an innuendo. "Faith."

Faith. Well, names were good.

And then she watched, unable to tear her eyes away, as the girl's hands- Faith's hands- worked their way between her thigh, hard and fast, fingers against her clit faster and faster until the explosion, drawn out by touching the piercing-

Fuck.

"Why are you here?" Gwen called. A blank stare again, this time due less, Gwen imagined, from confusion based on her words than from the haze of orgasm. And then, brilliantly, Gwen pulled out a pen, pulled out some paper, wrote: "Why are you here?"

Faith deciphered her scrawl, seemed to decide it was a good idea, but outdid her, not looking for a pen, just casually scratching across skin til it bled, then dark red on white: "Murder."

Gwen, writing: "But why here? Are you a freak?"

A gesture. Faith's skin, just broken, was healing quickly. Too quickly.

Freak.

Gwen nodded.

Faith, not shouting, almost quiet really, but her voice enough to penetrate Gwen's being anyway. "Slayer."

Well. Damn.

A pause, a bit lip, three words on paper. "Break the glass."

A quirked eyebrow. Then, defiant: "You break the glass."

Scrawled quickly, held up for Faith to see: "I can't."

"Are you a Slayer?"

No. Just a freak. Gwen shook her head no.

Faith nodded.

Nodded and broke the glass.

Plexiglas shards flying everywhere and Gwen could feel the metal in the walls of Faith's room which were magically missing from her own. Like Superman after he'd been kept in a Kryptonite room for years.

But why need that metal when Faith's got enough electricity pulsing through her veins to last for years?

A nod and Faith hurtled through the broken glass. Tiny scratch marks on her skin but that didn't matter because this was what was important.

Standing in front of Gwen, examining her, smiling at what she saw.

"Strip," and Gwen unhooked her bra with its goddamned plastic catches and the last of her clothing was thrown to the floor and she stood naked in front of Faith and fuck if the girl didn't look feral. Gwen's voice caught in her throat.

"Can't touch," Gwen managed, hands shaking.

"Why not?" Faith's breath hot against her throat, just inches away.

No- do it- please-

But the words, spilling out before she could stop them: "You'll die."

"I doubt that."

Gwen raised an eyebrow.

Faith stepped back.

An explanation: "I'm a freak."

A smirk: "Who isn't?"

Gwen held out a hand towards the wall of Faith's room, and the lights shorted out, the security cameras shorted out, everything froze to a halt except for her tongue as it carefully traced its way across her lower lip.

And Faith understood. "Bed," she instructed.

And Gwen lay back, spread her legs, and Faith watched and told her, faster, no slower, harder, no gentle, no, no- now.

And when Gwen came it was from her own fingers but it might as well have been Faith's.

"My turn?" and Faith nodded, and Gwen felt like jelly but she ignored it and pulled herself off the bed and gestured for Faith to take her place.

And now Faith's hands, roaming her body, but listening to instructions like a good submissive, and shit, all the things she'd read, Gwen would fucking kill to train Faith, but you can't take someone with a strong hand when you can't touch them.

Not even a Slayer.

"Close your eyes," Gwen whispered. And then she instructed: harder, faster, lower, deeper, all the right things. "Freeze," she whispered, and Faith's hand froze in mid-stroke.

And maybe it was because she was so worked up, maybe because her mind was frozen on the edge of her orgasm, but Faith didn't seem to notice as Gwen's body slipped closer and closer to her.

Gwen's hand found the metal ring between Faith's thighs.

The girl screamed out her orgasm, arched up so hard that Gwen barely had time to move her hand and avoid seriously hurting her. Twitched and trembled and looked like she was about a step away from an epileptic seizure. Soaked the bed sheets through with sweat. Cursed like a sailor.

Got off in a major way.

"Want to get out of here?" Gwen whispered.

Faith's stare, blank and hazy and sated as she didn't speak.

"Security's down. I can get us out of here. You up for it?"

Faith's voice, raspy and uncertain. "Can't. Gotta atone."

"No you don't." Gwen laughed slightly. "You're a Slayer. You Slayed. Come on. We could have such a great time of it, you and me..."

"No." Stronger now. "Can't. People need me to-"

Oh. People. The people Gwen didn't have, didn't want, didn't need. Those people. Right.

Whatever.

"Tell them I forced you," Gwen said. "They'll believe it. I'm an evil bitch." A smile. "And no matter what you do, I'm breaking the fuck out of here." The smile widening. "There's no blood. Use that. Tell them you refused to hurt me. Bet they'll take you out of the freak cell. Maybe even put you in with the norms."

"I should be so lucky," murmured Faith, and laughed dully. "Maybe they'll even let me out for good behavior."

Suddenly serious, now. "No they won't. Don't believe them. No matter what they say, they'll never trust people like us."

"Like what?"

"Like freaks."

Laughter, like dying, and she was gone, leaving her newest doll broken in her wake.

Faith hadn't melted like the ones in the dollhouse had.

But she was a lot like them, anyway.

Or maybe Gwen was.

It was hard to tell, sometimes.

.End