Hollow Dolls, The

The Hollow Dolls

a
novel by Marilyn Talia Dahl

Pig
Ride by Amarie Daisyjaw

Black
Comb by Marilyn Talia Dahl

The Hollow Dolls

Love,
madly.

Chapter One

Naked.
Nineteen. Under the London sky. Red rain scattered down through the grating
from the opening in Melanie’s throat. He rolled her body over the edge. Her
head came open when she slammed the pavement. Stones dug into her breasts. Warm
blood pooled around her temple into the corner of her mouth.

Mel
was always the one in charge of Melanie. That’s what she thought. Because when
she was Melanie, Mel was gone. Simple. Not really. Sometimes Mel sort of knew
that she was Melanie. Like when Georgy rolled Melanie over the edge of the fire
escape, Mel went over too and she could still feel the stones and blood
afterward sitting on the gratings with a smoke in her hand.

 So
Mel wasn’t completely shocked that they were both in the body together. Then
the third girl showed up. Born on the combine. The black comb. Half in the
ground. Seven years earlier on a farm in British Columbia. Now she was back.

Leather.
Strapped to the black iron by her wrists and ankles. Sunny skies and
strawberries. Melanie had told Mel about the black comb under hypnosis. It was
the only way Melanie could remember any of the bad stuff.

The
girl scared Melanie and she clung to Mel on the fire escape. Mel held the three
of them together, Melanie peeing through the grating the same way she peed on
the black comb. And the new girl with black hair, rancid mad—Mel looked into
her eyes and saw the stars and fish swimming in blood.  They fell in love.

Mel’s
therapy with Dr. Georgy Kovalev was once a week for the regular talking sessions.
Plus they did hypnotherapy to try and piece together her childhood. During
hypno, Melanie would find things in the memory bank and she’d hand them over to
Mel since they were too frightening for her to hang on to. Like the day on the
combine.

Upon
arrival at Georgy’s office, Melanie always sat on the chocolate leather couch
like a good girl, with her hands folded. She felt safe and was excited to be
there.

“Looks
like you’ve come straight from the beach,” said Georgy. “Is that cotton?”

“What
this little thing?” Melanie spoke with her favorite accent. The little southern
girl played with the hem of her skirt.

Georgy
looked over his glasses and smiled. “In May, no less!”

He
had friendly eyes. To Melanie, Georgy was someone’s hot older brother in her
imaginary picture album. Melanie had already added him into Club Lick family
along with her co-worker Cara as her own sister.

The
phone rang.

Melanie
ran off to the washroom and stepped out the window to the fire escape. She
picked a pinner of kush from under her bra strap and lit it with a wooden
match.

Pull.

She
flicked the little wooden soldier and he did somersaults through the air,
arcing a trail of woody smoke. She tried to track it all the way down six
stories to the pavement on Tavistock Street.

Exhale.

It
was quiet here in daytime, not a single person in sight.

Pull.

Half
a block down was Drury Lane. Turn left there to Club Lick where Mel worked as a
dancer. Turn right one block to Caldwych Theatre. Then around the corner was
London Waldorf Hotel.

Exhale.

Georgy
had taken her there.

Pull
long. Eyes closed.

Mel
recalled the dining room that night; it was aglow with candle light. She loved
the yellow in her eyes. Her favorites were pinks and reds with stars and fish
swimming in blood.

Exhale.

Those
were the colors when Melanie was inside the pain where the new girl lived.

Pull.

The
angle was so steep to the bottom, she could barely make out Georgy’s door. It
was hard to see, even from the street, because it was plain white with no markings.
Just inside the door was the old elevator. The halls were dark and spooky and
beautiful.

Exhale.

At
one appointment she’d walked all the way up the fire escape instead. When
Georgy heard her knocking at the bathroom window, he just smiled and let her
in. He handled all Club Lick girls’ mental kinks and cankers and was an
associate of Lilly, the club’s owner. Melanie looked at her white watch. It was
a wrap around with no clasp. Four twenty. 

Toot-toot-toot.

She
licked the little brown spot on her fingers, dropped the tiny roach over the
rail, then hurried back down the hall with the last lung-full.

Tip-toeing
up to the door mat, she held it in and turned an ear to the door. When she
exhaled, the smoke was completely gone. Georgy was still talking on the phone.

“Is
she pliable enough for you?” said Georgy.

“I
don’t want her wandering the halls like a lost kitten,” said Lilly.

Pliable?
Georgy must be talking about his crazy medical tools. He’d shown her pictures.

“I
inject it through the plastic bottle cap—salvia divinorum with a pinch of
methamphetamine,” said Georgy. “It pings the antipsychotic. I’m working on a
cocktail.”

Melanie
only knew methamphetamine. That was crystal meth. She’d smoked it with Lexa in
Vancouver. 

 “Georgy,
please, not with the science,” said Lilly. “Just keep her happy. And if you
hurt one hair—”

 “Lilly,
I’ve told you! Enough already, she will perform just fine. There are
practically no physical drawbacks.”

Georgy
nodded toward Mel when she re-entered the room. “Right then, Lilly. I’ll keep
you posted.”

“Lilly?”
She flipped to Mel, became serious. “It’s not Cara is it? Is she okay?” Cara
was Mel’s obsession. The thought that anything might be wrong startled her.

Georgy
hung up and scratched a pen against his notepad hastily. “No, it’s not Cara,”
said Georgy. “She’s fine.”

She
examined his eyes to be sure. Relieved, but still curious, she asked, “Salvia
divin...that’s Latin right?”

“Not
your concern Mel. That’s to do with another patient.”

Georgy
pulled his feet off the desk, stood, tossed the notepad with a careful flick of
the wrist like he was playing a game on the midway at a carnival. The landing
was perfect, his boyish face immediately showed pleasure with the results of
the toss.

Georgy
had no boy inside.

He
straightened his vest and put his hands in his pockets. As he walked over, his
eyes never left hers. He stood over her by the couch. She trusted him
completely.

Mel
looked down.

“I
wish I was more like Cara,” she said, then looked back up. She felt desire stir
inside as she examined the nuances of his athletic build under his clothes.
Their eyes met again.

Georgy
turned to look over at his wall portraits.

“Cara
and Alejandra Tipalov,” he murmured.

“Cara
and who?” Mel wondered about the photo, why she’d never examined it closer.

“Oh,
just someone I used to work with, in the military, back in Russia.”

Georgy...in
the military. It was world away. Distracted, she went back to thinking of Cara.
She stood and walked casually away from Georgy to his desk, then turned the
Moscow snow globe as she often did during sessions. Mel could feel him
following her with his eyes; she always played that way.

“And
Cara knows about love.” Mel spoke from a pool of gathered intellectual nuances
that comprised her feelings and emotions. Her sadness was the collective
phantom melancholy of the world around her. Mel’s eyes glazed as she watched
the flurry of plastic snow settle on the little replica of St. Basil's
Cathedral. She knew that love was made of chemicals ejected into the
bloodstream, neurons firing, language forming in the mind. Only in Cara it was
more.

“It’s
deep inside her somehow. I can see love in Cara’s eyes, and in the way she
moves.”

“You
will love too,” he said. “Some day.”

Mel
turned and looked into his eyes.

“I’ll
never love,” she said. Mel’s truth, suspended in falling plastic snow—she
turned and set it back down on his desk. “I’ve tried,” she said. “Wrote and
conjured and painted with words. I don’t even feel them.”

Mel
sat back on the couch and glanced up at Georgy then back down at her hands,
trying to make them sit properly. She felt unsure of everything for a moment
and pinched her thigh hard.

“I
wish Cara and I were sisters. The same blood!” she demanded. She pinched
harder, as though there had been a mistake with her body—with everything.

Georgy
reasoned it was Melanie’s young, underdeveloped emotional persona crying out
for attention. He touched her hair. “You have fine blood.” He spoke in a warm
tone that always soothed Mel and made Melanie want to come out in her; made her
feel like she was floating.

He
was six-five and two hundred something, still maintaining his soldier’s build
with daily workouts. When she looked in his blue eyes, she couldn’t tell if he
was a bad wolf. She could always tell when she got close to a man, but not with
him.

Mel
smiled and lifted her arms up, knowing why he was still standing there like
that. Georgy slipped her top up and off. She led him to the bathroom by his
tie. They splashed water all over the floor and steamed up the mirror.

After,
she was Melanie again, sitting naked, alone on the wrought iron fire escape
smoking a cigarette. She felt the trigger strips inside like wicks and
gunpowder. Something hovered. She wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked
on the grating, making it dig in more until it hurt.

Letting
her legs open, she peeped down past her shiny hood ring, looking into the black
metal grating against the skin on her bum. She saw the combine in her mind for
real—both Melanie and Mel saw that whole day on the farm in one moment. All the
men and the pain. And the girl. Melanie froze—possessed. She gripped the black
gratings: the new girl was in the pain place.

Georgy
came crawling across the floor, playful, wanting more, catching Melanie’s
attention. The girl went away. She pretended Georgy was one of those yellow
snakes, so thick she couldn’t wrap her hands all the way around. The snake
climbed up on top of her, pulled her flat out and Melanie’s head banged on the
grating. She gripped the railing above, dizzy, and held on tight as it
slithered inside. The tail coiled around her.

When
he was coming, Georgy curled his thumbs in the corners of Melanie’s mouth and
pushed her head back hard, over the edge. She bit down, came too. Depleted, her
head tilted to the side, she was gone away with saliva dripping down her cheek
to her ear. Georgy rolled her body over the edge.

Mel
was spent, letting her arm hang over the side of the fire escape. The feeling
of the blood on her cheek and the pavement were still there. Melanie whispered
frantically to Mel about the girl. They both knew they’d had an episode. And it
was together. And they were both still there.

It
was all too much for Melanie. Her mouth fell open letting drips of saliva fall
from her lower lip. Her glassy eyes stared at the pee spray disappearing down
the six stories. She’d peed on the combine too. It was all she could do.

 “Wait!
Melanie, don’t go,” said Mel. “I want us all here together.” She held Melanie
there, bracing her arms around her knees. Mel was looking into the new girls
eyes. Mel and Melanie both felt the new girl’s dark sexual aura. Mel wanted to
stay close to her, tell the girl everything that had happened since the farm. She
was captivated looking in the girl’s eyes at the stars and blood and fish
swimming. Then Georgy called. They all had to get dressed and get back inside.

“I’ve increased the Risperdal to five hundred milligrams.” Georgy
set the pill bottle on his desk. He always gave her samples of those, since he
had lots and she’d save a few quid
.

“I’m almost out of Xanax… and Ritalin,” said Mel.

Georgy mumbled and scribbled prescriptions like he was signing autographs.
“Ritalin—twenty milligrams three times a day, stay with that. These Xanax, Mel,
use them sparingly...one eighty at two milligrams. That should last you for a
while.”

The Xanax were white bars that you could break into half doses. She
usually just took the whole bar...or two.  Melanie slipped her coat on. She
stood by Georgy at his desk with her coat open, waiting for him to finish. She
wanted sex again soon. Now even. She knew one thing. The new girl was making her
even more restless for it. They all craved him together.

“Don’t forget your Risperdal tablets.”

Melanie went to take them from his hand and Georgy held the bottle
firm. “You’re drinking your water?”

“Yes.” Melanie nodded and her pony brushed the back of her neck. The
force of him holding the bottle, touching her fingers...it completely distracted
her. She would say yes to anything.