His Cemetery Doll (5 page)

She wound the fingers of her other hand into his hair, tugging him gently closer.

"Is this what you want?" he whispered. In answer, the living doll pulled him down to her, and Conall, still holding her, guided her to his bed.

They tumbled to the mattress in a whirl of ribbons, the fog pressing in on every side. Conall rolled to top her, still kissing those porcelain lips—but now, he thought he felt them kissing back, the barest hint of panting breath between them. He slid his hand down her body and found the bizarre seams between her limbs. Following the joint of her inner elbow with his thumb, he broke off his kisses long enough to stare down, puzzling over it.

"You...aren't real," he murmured, tracing the seam. "You can't be. But...you
feel
so..."

She pulled his face back to her, back to needful lips. He shivered with pleasure at the chill of her mouth under his, the mingling of their breaths, icy frost and rousing heat. His reaction stirred under the cloth of his pajama pants: his cock nudged at the firmness of her belly.

It occurred to him then to wonder how far his doll meant to take him. He broke from her, breathing hard as he stared, questioning, down at her.

Her attention remained oriented on his eyes—how he
hated
her blindfold, hiding her true gaze from him, denying him the sight of her real expression. Her fingertips, though, slid down his body, moving with slow but deliberate intention. He shuddered as they slid beneath the hem of his pants and bravely wrapped around his stiffened cock.

"Oh—" he breathed, his eyes sliding shut. He moved his hips to meet her, feeling dazed. He couldn't recall the last time another had caressed him so; the last time a woman's delicate hand had gripped him in such firm but gentle tenderness.

She met his motions. The confines of clothing stifled him, and he shifted to slide his trousers off. She shifted as he did and rolled him onto his back, straddling his hips.

She sat up, allowing him to behold her fully. As he watched, the ribbons wound around her body began to slip away, slowly unraveling to reveal the immaculate form beneath: breasts, wanton and gleaming white, capped with brilliant pert nipples like snow; flat belly, dipping into a tiny cup of a navel; sweet, sensuous hips; and finally, a bare, perfectly shaped, womanly mound.

Conall couldn't help it: he brought a hand up to trace the outline of her sex, testing it. Cool, smooth, like the rest of her...but pliant, yielding under his touch. He slipped his finger into a silken sheath, and
here
he found her hot, and wet.

The doll's head rolled back, her hips sliding forward to welcome him.

"Who broke your mask?" he asked, reaching up with his free hand to remove the blindfold. She turned her face away, clearly denying him. She seized his hand and guided it instead to her breasts, letting him knead the soft flesh.

"Why do you come to me?" he breathed. She spoke through her motions, as she began to move again, rocking to him, back arching with her delight. Her gestures, so...
alien.
She mesmerized him, the slide and roll of her body, the graceful arch of her form. In the glow of gray night fog she seemed to float above him. He withdrew his hand from her sex and grasped her other hip, pulling her down, moaning softly at the way her thighs tightened around him.

Steadying her with an arm around her waist, Conall sat up, settling her in his lap. His cock pressed stiff against her, and he nuzzled his face between her breasts, greedily inhaling her scent. She smelled like winter, and it filled him with a sense of sweet freedom, escape, release. As he took one lovely nipple between his lips, he found she tasted like snow.

She shifted her hips to explore the rigid length of him. His cock jumped at the feel of her pristine pussy gliding along him. His hands slipped to her firm buttocks, and she let him lift her up, then slid back down, welcoming his hardness inside of her.

Conall threw back his head with a breathless moan, as they began to move. Dichotomous sensation suffused his whole body: her figure, firm in his grip and yet astounding in its unreal character; the deep heat and sensuality of her sex, an invigorating contrast to the wintry pleasure of her skin; her legs, squeezing him tightly as her hands rested, hardly there at all, over his shoulders. A spirit, fleeting and ephemeral; a woman, welcome and familiar, riding with him in throes of ardent need. They surged, arching to one another, and Conall's heart beat with rapid excitement.

He needed to feel her ecstasy. He curled one arm around her hips and rested his other hand over her left breast.

"Look at me," he gasped. "Please. I want to see it on your face, in your eyes."

She did look at him, but of course, all he saw was the expressionless doll's mask. It pierced him. He reached for the blindfold and, as before, she ducked his hand.

There
had
been a change in those fixed features, though. A single, argentine tear traced down from under the ribbons, sliding down one perfect cheek.

He touched his finger to it and found it wet, exactly like a real woman's tears. Moving closer, deeper, he pressed his lips to hers again, and their motions quickened. Her hands closed around the back of his neck, fingers tangling in his hair.

He gripped her hard and pulled her into heavier rhythm, needing to plunge deeper. Her slick inner sex welcomed him, so tight, so sweet around him, eager and yielding for him. The head of his cock swelled with desperate want, his thighs and buttocks flexing to give her all of him, every vigorous stroke. The rush of impending climax gathered, tightening in his loins, and he shivered as her cool breasts met his heated chest, her pert nipples like snowflakes alighting on his skin. The thrill pulsed through him, to the core, and his cock throbbed inside her.

She tightened. Her pussy quivered around him and her fingertips dug into his flesh. At the first quake of her climax, his cock jumped as he came to his peak, his pleasure cresting and crashing into orgasm. The first jet of hot cum burst from him, spilling into her, and he pulled her down on him hard, holding her as he pumped stream after stream of slick heat inside her body.

He still kissed her, holding her with unshakeable strength, claiming her. She made no sound, but he could feel her sex tightening around him, clenching and releasing in hungry, nearly painful desperation. When their lips parted he could swear he felt her icy, heavy breath against his mouth.

He held her there on his lap, unmoving for long moments after their climaxes subsided. He closed his eyes and buried his face in the slender slope of her beautiful neck, inhaling the clean, enticing scent of her.

"This..." he panted, "...is madness. This is...utter madness."

The doll leaned her brow to his, saying nothing.

I
t must have been a dream.

He woke alone, with late afternoon sunlight streaming in his window, golden dust motes floating lazily through it. His sheets were drenched with sweat, but no one lay with him. No woman, doll or otherwise.

Conall sighed, resting his arm on his brow.

He rarely troubled over women. The war had changed him, as it did so very, very many men. Injuries and horrific sights scarred and crippled them. Conall came back a hardened man, and far too battered to be companionable to anyone.

So why did his mind take him to this impossible doll, now?

Why imagine her coming to him...to make love?

He sighed again, and rolled on his side. It didn't sound as if Shyla had come home yet. Still alone in the house, he imagined he could use a little more sleep. It must have been hours, and
still
he remained unrested. Perhaps he'd contracted a bug, and he grumbled to himself over it.

Then his eyes fell upon Shyla's stuffed dog, tenderly placed at the foot of the bed.

A trail of small, bare footprints, outlined in white frost, led out the room's open door.

***

"C
onall...you look like hell, man."

By evening, Conall managed to drag himself out of bed to make the trip to town and pick up Shyla. Though finally a little rested, he struggled with a strange, mildly hungover feeling. Not so much a hangover from alcohol...no headache, no sensitivity to light or sound. Instead, a hollow aching pestered him. All during the walk to town, he'd been wondering about his vision.

The effect on him must be obvious, because Father Frederick mentioned it even before he said hello. Conall joined him at the fence to Alderman Trask's horse paddock, where Ora and Shyla offered bits of apple up to a trio of patient mares. New horses, Conall supposed. Trask must have brought them in scarcely today.

"Cracked my head on a gravestone this morning," Conall said to the priest. He rubbed the knot on his head as he said it. "I've been off-balance since."

"Goodness, is it all right? You might be concussed."

Conall waved off his concern. "I'll be fine."

They stood in silence for a few moments, watching the girls. Shyla seemed to have made friends with the elegant chestnut: it nosed her sweetly as she stroked its neck, and Conall smiled for the first time since the alderman had come up to him in the graveyard yesterday.

"Sorry for my temper last night," he said to Frederick. "You're right, of course...I
should
be thinking about what's best for Shyla."

"So have you decided to send her to the convent?"

"Haven't decided yet," Conall admitted. "But I'm considering it. I don't think Shyla likes the idea, though."

"Children never like the idea of being sent away for their education," Frederick said. His voice held a distinctly humorless tone as he thoughtfully watched Shyla dusting her hands off on her loose trousers. "You've given her a lot of freedom, Conall...of course, no one could blame you. Your circumstances are unique. I'm afraid you may find her spoiled and uncooperative, if you allow her to have an opinion in the matter. Remember, my friend...she's a child, not a grown woman."

Conall frowned. After several more moments, he called out to his daughter, and she spun with a smile, jogging toward him.

"Are you feeling better, Dad?" she asked, hopping up on the fence and bending to plant a kiss on his cheek.

"Well enough." He nodded toward the horses. "Found a new hobby, then?"

"Mr. Trask says I can come feed them with Ora every day if I like! In the mornings before we walk to school. Do you mind? I promise I won't be late to class, and on days off I'll come right back home after I'm done."

A chore to keep her busy outside of the cemetery? He couldn't ask for better.

"Horses are big creatures," he hedged. "You would also have to promise me you'd be careful."

"I will."

"And kind to them."

"Of course!"

"And you'd best not let the alderman down," he finished. "If he's trusting you and Ora to take care of the beauties."

"I won't," she said very solemnly. "Is it all right? Can I come back tomorrow to help?"

He pretended to consider it, even though he'd already easily decided. Throwing a consulting glance at Father Frederick—one he didn't really need returned—he finally ruffled Shyla's hair and said, "All right. As long as you keep up with it
and
your chores at home."

"Thank you!" she said, giving him another kiss. Turning to the older girl, she said, "Let's go tell your father."

Then they scrambled off, running toward the house.

"Hurry up, now!" Conall called after her. "It's time for us to be getting home!"

In the silence the two girls left behind, Father Frederick shook his head.

"Shyla is meant for so much more than mere house and farm work, Conall," he said. "I urge you,
don't
let her tug at your heartstrings to get her way. She'll thank you for sending her, in the end."

"I'll keep it in mind," he grumbled. He didn't meet the father's prying gaze.

***

C
onall had entered the war at the onset, when his country had joined the U.K. in declaring war on Germany, after the invasion of Poland. He'd been eighteen then, younger than the average soldier, but an eager fighter surrounded by other young men equally as eager. His tour saw him into the Special Air Service, David Stirling's espionage and sabotage ground force. Most of the SAS activity had taken place in Northern Africa, but Conall found himself stationed in France, ferreting intelligence and destroying major enemy supply depots and equipment. In 1941, one of the sabotage operations backfired. He'd been caught in a skirmish against German soldiers in overwhelming numbers. A grenade landed near him: it sent a jagged fragment of metal shrapnel deep into his upper thigh. The injury ended his career, and he'd been sent home again.

He'd had no one to go home to. Barely a few weeks prior to the injury, Con's regiment had received word of the Blitz in Scotland, and the ruin of Clydebank.

Conall's family—mother, father, and one younger brother—had made their home there. His father and brother worked in the shipyards.

None of them survived the raid.

So, Conall came back to the U.K. with no home waiting for him and no family left alive. Many of his friends still fought overseas. Who could say if they'd return, and what they'd return to if they did?

Twenty years old and without any notion of what to do with himself, Conall fell to wandering: drifting through Britain, purposeless and lost. Perhaps he'd become something like his mysterious living doll...except Conall could never be anything so beautiful as a doll. No, he'd been more like a department-store mannequin, featureless, plastic, empty, and vague.

His ventures led him to Whitetail Knoll a year after his return. The town was small, relatively undisturbed by the war, far-flung in the rural English countryside.

Father Frederick had, like Conall, been sent home from the war after taking serious injuries in the name of the Allied Powers. Unlike Conall, though, Frederick's injuries might not be so readily obvious. Sometimes Conall believed he caught the father wandering away from them all, going somewhere in his mind where Whitetail Knoll, the church, and all his parish faded to nothing but a faraway dream. Frederick would always come back, shaking his head and wearing a troubled grimace.