The Dollhouse Society: Isabelle (New Adult BDSM Erotica) (2 page)

With a sigh,
I padded back to the bathroom and just stared at myself in the mirror in the dark. I didn’t like putting on bright lights anymore. I’d always hated my body—I was short and stocky, with huge, double-D, basketball-sized boobs, which sounds good in theory but are just plain awful for buying clothes and looked all wrong on me—and not for the first time, I desperately wished I could trade bodies with one of the tall, willowy college girls I passed in the hallways all the time. I wish I had their lives.

I picked up my lipstick off the vanity and added to the list of imperfections I’d started writing on the mirror. Under
Too Short
and
Too Fat
I wrote
Mousy Hair
. Under that, I added
Stretch Marks
. I had a lot of them since gaining weight over the last few months. As I set the lipstick down, I saw the scrap of paper that Stefan had given me lying on the floor. I figured it must have fallen out of my things as I was undressing.

I add
ed
Disorganized
under
Stretch Marks
, then went to pick up the paper.

I didn’t want another job, frankly. After what happened last year, I’d quite the coffee house job I’d been doing so I could put my head back toge
ther. But student loans were piling up, and I couldn’t live off Ramen for the rest of my life. On top of that, my grandma was going to need another surgery soon. Poverty and the threat of being thrown out of college was forcing me back into the workforce where I didn’t want to be anymore.

I looked at the address
and the time of the interview that Stefan had gotten me. It was tomorrow, Saturday, at ten in the morning. He’d underlined the word
sharp
. I thought about what Stefan had said about Dr. Dorian Michaels. What little I remembered of him was a cold and aloof man. But he was gay, so it was obvious I didn’t have to worry about
that
.

“This is important, Iz,” I told myself. “This is part of
Operation Putting Your Shit Back Together.”

I nodded. I’d always been
very good at talking myself into anything.

Before I went to bed,
I gave my grandma a call and we chatted for a few minutes about everything and nothing. Then I got into bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. And like I had for the past year, I cried myself to sleep.

***

Dr. Michaels, like a lot of folks who worked in New York City, had a house in Westchester County—if you could call it a house. Actually, it was more of a mansion, like that old, rambling stone monolith you see in the
Batman
movies, the one with multiple levels and turrets and maybe even a Bat Cave underneath it. Like Bruce Wayne, Dr. Michaels was probably quite the player, I marveled.

I showed the gateman my ID and he buzzed me through the tall black iron gates. I drove my little
secondhand Volkswagen up the long, meandering, paved driveway to the front of the house and parked in the circular drive with the stone fountain in the center. I climbed out, craning my neck to get a good look of the highest pinnacle of the old house.
Jesus,
I would have to clean this place?

It was only the thought that Dr. Michaels paid so well that encouraged me to walk up to
the front door, inlaid with ridiculous amounts of frosted glass, and ring the doorbell. I waited, fidgeting nervously and staring down at myself. I’d dressed down and wore a simple white blouse and tartan skirt, a dark, oversized cardigan sweater, knee socks and penny loafers. After all, I wasn’t applying to be the doctor’s receptionist or anything. I mean, what did a housekeeper look like?

I flinched as someone opened the door.
Maybe I’d expected Alfred to answer in his tuxedo, but the man standing there was anything but a butler. He was tall, well over six foot, and massively built, dressed in a snug white T-shirt and even more snug jeans. Sleeves of intricate tattoos covered both arms up the elbows, and his sandy blond hair was cut spiky and professionally tousled. He had three earrings in each ear and a face that was ruggedly carved and decidedly no-nonsense, with just enough stubble to make my heart kick me in the ribs.

He frowned down at me and I felt myself inch back a step. I’d had no idea that Dr. Michaels employed a bouncer. “H-hello,” I stuttered “I’m…uh…I’m…”

“Here for a consultation?” he asked. His voice was deep, but softer than I’d anticipated.

I nodd
ed dumbly, like some bobblehead, then shook it suddenly. “No…I mean, I’m here to see Dr. Michaels? My friend Stefan sent me? For the housekeeping position?”

“Ah,” he said, holding the door open for me. “I’m Dr. Michaels.
Come in.”

“You’re…Dr. Michaels?” I said as he ushered me inside.

“I take it Stefan didn’t warn you, Ms.—?” He looked me up and down as he spoke, obviously enjoying the impression he was making on me.

“
It’s…” I almost said Iz or Izzy or Izzy Pop, which was what my friends always called me, but in the end it felt so ugly and inadequate I blurted out, “…Belle. Belle Starling. Um…no, he just said…”
What, Iz, that Dr. Michaels was unbelievably smoking hot? You already knew that, dumbass.

Yeah, knowing was one thing…but actually seeing…
I closed my mouth before I made a fool of myself. “I mean, he didn’t say much.”

“I see.”
He led me across the vast foyer and down a long corridor. “You have a pretty name.”

“Thanks.”

I tried not to watch his perfect ass encased in those tight jeans as we turned into a massive office. It was done up in a lot of dark wood, glass and manly leather that would have seemed cold and old fashioned except for the vintage guitars and signed photos of various famous musicians on the walls. In fact, one whole wall was dedicated to the speed metal band Suicide Kings, which had been urber-popular about five years ago, before they went into early retirement. I saw all kinds of memorabilia on the wall—studded leather jackets, band photos, posters, signed photographs. Wow, I thought, my possible future employer was quite the fan.

I stared at a signed, original Les Paul until Dr. Michaels spoke up. “I used to play, before I turned to medicine. Have a seat.”

I did a double-take of Dr. Michaels, then looked back at one of the band photos. I wanted to smack my forehead. “You’re Damian, the bass man of Suicide Kings, aren’t you?” Or, that was the name he went by as a musician, anyway.

“I was,” he said with a small smirk, but then shrugged, like it was just a footnote in his history. “That was
before I found my real calling in medicine.”

Stunned,
I sat down opposite the big mahogany desk behind which the former bass man of Suicide Kings was sitting. I just couldn’t get over that!

Dr. Michaels moved his impressive bulk around to the chair behind the desk,
ready to sit, but then the doorbell went off again. He stopped and said, “We take consultations here. If you’re hired, you’ll be handling this circus. I’ll be right back.”

“All right,” I said, trying not to sink into the leather wing chair
which made me feel small and insignificant. I figured that was probably its purpose. Wow, I thought, a rock and roll doctor. I waited maybe five minutes before I started to squirm. I was about to get up and examine the guitars a little closer when Dr. Michaels suddenly swung back into the room.

He walked softly and I barely heard him enter, but suddenly he was standing by the desk, looking over an open file
lying there, barely aware of my presence. He’d donned a long blue doctor’s coat, and he’d removed the earrings and had slipped on a pair of wire-frame reading glasses—probably for his consultation—but I could still see plainly that it was him. I sat for a few seconds in silence before saying, “Um…”

He turned to glare at me w
ith cold blue eyes. “What are you doing here?”

I stiffened in my seat, unsure what to say for the moment. Did he have Alzheimer’s or something? “Um…” I said, hating the way I abused that small expression. “
I’m Belle? I’m here for the housekeeping position?”

Dr. Michaels quirked a smile.
“Ah. I see.” Looking bored, he picked up the file, balancing it professionally in his open palm. “Stay there. I’ll be back shortly.”

I sat and twiddled my thumbs, my brow wrinkling as I tried to make sense of Dr. Michael’s
bizarre memory lapse. What strange behavior! About five minutes after that, he returned, but this time sans the coat, and he had the earrings back and no glasses. I wondered if he remembered me this time. I wondered if maybe I wasn’t losing my mind.

“There you are
, Belle. Glad you didn’t run off.”

My anger got the better of me and I stood up. “I’m not sure what kind of a game you’re playing with me,
Dr. Michaels, but I don’t appreciate this run around…”

Dr. Mic
haels set his big, slim hands upon the edge of the desk. “I’m sorry? I’m not following you.”

“You were just here. Then you were gone again, like you didn’t even know I’d been waiting…”

Another sly smile tugged the corners of Dr. Michael’s mouth. Despite my better sense, I felt my stomach flip over at the sight. “Oh. You’ve met Dorian.”

“Dorian?”

“My brother. My twin. He’s Dr. Dorian, if it makes things easier to remember. I’m Dr. Damian. He’s the plastic surgeon, the talented one. I’m the anesthesiologist.”

“Oh!” I said, and mentally kicked myself for going off on Dr.
Damian the way I had. I felt like a heel and wanted to sink into the floor. I felt like I’d fallen into some weird 1980’s-style sitcom full of mix-ups and misunderstandings. “I’d no idea…I mean, Stefan never said anything about there being…um…”

“
Two of us?” Dr. Damian quirked a sandy eyebrow at me.

I sat down again. “Sorry, I…um…this is awkward.” I was sweating from all the embarrassment and I quickly wrangled my cardigan off. I knew my face was beet red and I couldn’t seem to stop clenching my hands together.

Silence pressed in until I looked up at Dr. Damian.

He was staring at me in a new way, not lik
e before, not in that teasing way he had. Instead, his focus was centered entirely on me—all over me—and his face was as sharp as a blade, his eyes an almost penetrating blue as they sparked with interest. He pressed his lips together as he gave me an all-over perusal that left me sweating and fidgeting even more. I just knew I was going to blow this interview!

Finally, he stood up. “Can you wait one moment
more, please, my dear? It’s important, and I promise I’ll be right back.” His voice had grown soft and hoarse.

“Sure,” I said, not looking at him
, though I wanted to roll my eyes.

He was gone maybe a minute or two at most, but returned this time with Dr. Dorian in tow.
It was a little surreal to see two men so very identical. I’d gone to high school with identical twin sisters, but even they weren’t
exactly
identical. I mean, you could usually figure out who was who. But Drs. Damian and Dorian were
exactly
physically alike, except for the tats and the earrings that Dr. Damian sported and that Dr. Dorian apparently didn’t have. And Dr. Damian didn’t have the glasses his brother did. Other than those small things, they might have been clones. I wondered how their parents had told them apart. It must have been a nightmare.

“This is Dr. Dorian,” Dr.
Damian said, introducing his brother.

I looked up at the tall man in the long blue doctor’s coat. He stared down his
long nose at me as if he were examining me. “This is she?” he said in a cold voice. It was definitely Dr. Dorian I had passed in the hallway that day at the hospital. I remembered his salty, clipped attitude all too well.

“Yeah, bro
, it is.” Damian moved back behind the desk but didn’t sit down this time. “Belle Starling. The Holy Grail, am I right?”

“It’s difficult to tell
,” Dr. Dorian said, canting his head. “Her clothes are so frumpy…”

“
Oh come on, Dor. Just look at her!”

Dr. Dorian tapped at his chin. “You may be right.”

I was confused. Insulted. At wit’s end. I looked back and forth between the two brothers. “What are you talking about?”

Dr.
Damian slid down into his seat behind the desk while Dr. Dorian perched on the edge and said, “We’ve done surgeries on literally thousands of patients over the years. Some were done
pro bono
, like your friend, Stefan. But most of our patients are runway models, women seeking mammoplasties—breast enhancements. They almost always choose—”

“
—Double-D’s, they’re our bestseller, you might say,” Dr. Damian finished for his brother. I found that both a little unsettling and whole lot impressive.

I grippe
d my sweater close. “What do your patients have to do with me?”

“You have perfect breasts,” they said in unison.