Links to all the parts of the story:
Edwin had been back from his business trip for about a fortnight, (and Charity had been exceptionally relieved to get out of her pee-drinking attire and back to ‘normality’ with a night-time session of congress), when there was a knock on the front door. The maid opened it and to her astonishment, in walked Samuel Baines looking extremely furious indeed. He demanded to see Edwin and the two retired to the study whilst Chairty sat in her usual silent contemplation.
When they emerged an hour later, Edwin was wearing a smile and after Samuel had left, he turned to his doll wife and said, “Hmm, I think we’ll be seeing some changes around here soon.”
Sure enough, three days later Samuel called round again and the two men again retired to the study. When they emerged Edwin was again smiling but this time he said nothing.
The third time that Samuel came, he was not alone. Instead he was accompanied by his wife who was most reluctant to enter and had to be manhandled by her spouse who was angry in the face. “Edwin old chap!” he exclaimed, as he pushed the real Chairty onto a chair, “I admit it, I was wrong and you were right! Have the bitch and may she behave better for you than she has done for me!”
“No! No!!!” screamed the woman Charity, clinging onto her husband’s coattails but he merely ignored her, turned tail and left, leaving her lying weeping on the floor. Charity the doll longed to put her arms round her and comfort this doppelganger in distress, but as they were forced into a tight monoglove at the time, she of course, could not. Edwin Clayhanger merely smiled and said, “Welcome home Charity, we shall speak on the morrow,” before retiring to bed and taking his doll wife with him.
On the morrow they did speak and it all became clear. It transpired that that day at the fete the two men had had an in-depth conversation about the real Charity. At first Samuel Baines had been livid that Edwin had modelled his doll wife on his real spouse, but when Edwin had told him how the real Charity had strung him along, he mellowed somewhat and said, “Ed, I understand now how you feel, but you are mistaken; my wife is no whore or gold-digger but a good and poor girl.”
“If only you were right,” Edwin had replied, “and I hope to God that my point-of-view is never proved to be the truth to you.”
But doubts had been put in Samuel Baines’ mind by his old friend, doubts fed perhaps by inklings that he had already he. He hired a private investigator to follow his wife whilst he was at work and discovered that she visited a strange house every afternoon, the house of one Daniel Povey, a well-known local gallant. That was when he’d gone round to Edwin for advice and Edwin had suggested he ask her about her plans for the coming day. “Oh, just to visit old Mrs. Povey on North Street,” she’d replied, which had put his mind at rest somewhat, but just to be sure he’d asked the investigator to dig a little more.
Sure enough, the investigator had dug and Samuel had not liked what he’d found. Yes, Charity had gone to Mrs. Povey’s house, but Mrs. Povey had been holidaying in Llandudno at the time! Indeed, only Daniel had been at home! Again Samuel had visited his friend and again Edwin had offered his advice. “You must confront her and see what she says. If she admits it, then order her to stop; if she does and she repents, forgive her, but if not then you must finish with her.”
“But how can I? She is my wife!”
“Adultery is a good reason for divorce. Even the Bible says so!”
“But what will become of her? I still love her but disgraced so she will never get another husband and her family won’t have her back! I don’t want her to become destitute or a prostitute!”
“Your concern as a husband honours you, but it is not just you who have loved her. If you must divorce, send her to me; I shall accept her as a companion for my Charity and I can ensure that she never disgraces you or any other male ever again.”
The next night Samuel had confronted Charity and she had admitted to an affair. She had not however, repented. “He is a better lover and a better man than you can ever be!” she’d exclaimed, her tongue loose with wine drank with Daniel Povey that afternoon. Her husband, tears in his eyes had begged her to repent and desist but the more he grovelled, the more she mocked him. Then he switched, realised how right Edwin Clayhanger had been all along and so dragged his wife to the home of his friend.
“A Lady’s Companion!” exclaimed the real Charity, indignant. “I am a lady and she – it – is only a doll. How can I be a companion to that?!”
“Charity my love, you were a lady, but you are no longer. Your husband is at the court now instigating the divorce and has placed you in my care. As your guardian I shall of course agree to the divorce and then employ you as a Companion for this Charity here, the Charity who gives honour to the name, not disgrace; the Charity who is the wife that you should have been but never were due to your own sinfulness!”
“No! Never! Anything but! I shall leave here, turn to prostitution, anything…”
But the maid had already placed the chloroform pad over her nose and mouth and she was sinking into the chair.
A week later…
Charity Clayhanger the Doll Wife sits in the sitting room, the clock slowly ticking, watching the hours pass by. Her life now is as it has been ever since she wed Edwin Clayhanger except that these days there are two important differences. The first is that sat by her is another figure, another doll, a doll identical to her in every respect, from the beautiful peach gown to the brown ringlets with yellow ribbons in them to the same rubber face. Even their names are identical: Charity Clayhanger. She is Mrs. Charity Clayhanger, the wife of Edwin Clayhanger; the other is Ms. Charity Clayhanger, her Companion, until recently Charity Baines but since her divorce she has taken on the surname of her guardian. Her ex-husband, incidentally, has recently announced he will be remarrying, to a doll wife formerly known as Shelley Woods but now to be referred to as ‘Arabella’.
As they sit their Mrs. Clayhanger recalls that evening well. She watched as the maids undressed the unconscious real Charity, gave her three successive enemas and then dressed her in her new latex underskin. When she awoke she, like the doll Charity, was force-fed several litres of nutrient-enriched water and then sealed into a doll suit with an exact copy of her real face at the top. Then the wig was produced and the dress and the two doll Charities were born.
The other crucial difference is what will come tomorrow. Edwin, ever the gentleman, announced to the two Charity dolls in his life that despite the fact that one was his wife and pure and the other merely a Companion and enmeshed in sin, he believed firmly in fairness and forgiveness. Therefore, he has forgiven his former love her misdemeanours and shall treat her as he treats his wife. This week Mrs. Clayhanger shall drink and eat and enjoy congress with her husband whilst Ms. Clayhanger sucks pee out of her bottom in sealed silence. After tomorrow though, the roles shall be reversed for a week and Ms. Clayhanger shall ‘enjoy’ the attentions of a man whilst Mrs. Clayhanger shall enjoy the fruits of derriere.
And so it shall continue until the Good Lord takes either Edwin, Charity or Charity.
Twenty years later…
And so here we find Charity Clayhanger, widow of the late Edwin Clayhanger, sat in the parlour of the Chiswick Home for Widowed Dolls. She sits there, a blank-faced, brown-eyed doll with the features of a twenty year-old whom her late husband once loved. Besides her sits an identical doll, a doll whose face, under all the rubber and latex, once looked like the fake face on the front. Their dresses are no longer crinolines for fashions have changed now and they wear large bustles but their hands are still encased in tight monogloves and they sit there in silence as the clocks tick, the only other sound being an almost imperceptible slurping as they both suck pee out of their bottoms to quench the never-ending thirst generated by a life enclosed in latex
FINIS
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