I am become Doll Collector
by Penny Paperbrain
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Author's Notes:
This strange ficlet was written in response to a challenge laid down by my friends Evil Asian Genius and Majinkarp. After reading Rug Doctor, they requested a spamfic about Muraki attending a doll collecting group... I’m afraid Muraki has been mysteriously relocated to a western country, as I simply don’t know enough about the culture to produce convincing Japanese housefraus. |
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“I am doing this for you, Veronica, so I trust you are grateful,” murmured Muraki, tapping the snub porcelain nose of his favourite as they stepped into the chintzy suburban sitting room. Veronica blinked at him in reply, but that was mostly because she had weighted eyelids and Muraki had tripped over an overstuffed pouffe. “Steady there,” said a jolly matronly voice as a plump hand caught Muraki’s immaculately-tailored arm. “Ooh, a nice young man’s come to see us. I’m Mabel, dear. Now, why don’t you sit here?” Muraki’s interlocutor, a broad woman in a vile hat, indicated to the small space between her bulk and the edge of the sofa she was squashing. A glance around the room revealed that, apart from the intolerably exposed pouffe, this was the only remaining seat. Taking a deep breath and thinking of Veronica’s welfare, Muraki did as he was told. Once arranged into a position where breathing was at least possible, Muraki settled Veronica in his lap and continued to stare around the room. It was full of suburban matrons, who were staring back at him with great interest. Muraki continued to stare. He felt that, as he was a part-demon serial killer with bleached white skin and scary mismatched eyes, it was these women’s responsibility to look away first. In addition to the colossus beside him, the Doll Group had four members, who all appeared to be made either of string or dough. Most of them were clutching a more or less inferior specimen of dollhood, except for one woman, who had a plastic tub full of detached arms that made Muraki feel oddly comforted. On a green glass coffee table in the middle of the circle sat a pile of collectors’ magazines. “It’s a bloody man!” the woman with the tub of arms remarked just loud enough for him to hear, diminishing Muraki’s fellow-feeling somewhat. The woman had a mole. “Well now, I think everyone’s arrived,” said another of the Group more loudly, a woman in a puce dress and twee glasses. She got to her feet, shooting biscuit crumbs across the carpet as she did so. The thin, makeupless woman on her right gave her a venomous glance. “Including our newest member, Dr Ka- Kazusa Muriel. I’m Rose, dear,” the woman leant over towards Muraki as if he was a bit deaf. “Can I call you Kazusa?” Muraki blanched, but then nodded graciously. “By all means,” He reasoned that only the path of politeness could save him now. The things I do for you, he chided Veronica silently. She waved a blonde hair or two at him in the updraught from Mabel’s straightening of her dress. “Would you like to introduce yourself to everyone?” continued Rose, grinning alarmingly. “’e’s a pervert, Vi, got to be,” Muraki heard the mole woman mutter to her neighbour, the very thin woman who had glared at puce Rose. Far from annoying him however, this gave him heart. Though most of these women were beyond the pale, he vaguely considered molesting Rose. But no, it would probably harm his reputation as a man of taste. “I would be delighted,” he said, leering at Rose anyway, but she only gave him a polite, slightly worried frown and made unsubtle gestures indicating he should stand. Muraki tried to get up, but suddenly he found he could not move. Mabel’s weighty thigh was pressing down on his own. Muraki used Veronica’s foot to give her a sharp poke and got to his feet, wincing as his circulation jump-started. “Ladies, Veronica and I are honoured to be welcomed into your home,” he began, cradling his beloved in the crook of his arm. “It’s my home,” asserted Vi loudly, earning her Rose’s worried look. “Quite so. I am most grateful.” “Would you like a biscuit?” Vi interpolated, putting aside her gurning plastic charge and plucking a plate from the arm of her chair. It contained three custard creams, partially mashed into the surface painting of kittens. Muraki’s razor-sharp predatory instincts detected that she simply wanted him to spray crumbs around the room and thus damn himself permanently. He felt pleased with himself for detecting this, then stupid for having been pleased with himself. “Oh, shut up, you,” said the mole woman, possibly to Vi or possibly to nobody at all. “No, thank you,” Muraki demurred, ignoring them all. “I come to you in search of advice. I am, as you see, a collector of choice porcelain dolls,” he ran a tender, paternal hand across the waves of Veronica’s blonde hair, and racked his brain for a way to put this that would not provoke tiresome questions. “I find in them greater companionship than any human being.” “Greater companionship than my husband, all right,” muttered the mole woman, and everyone sniggered. Muraki was horrified to find his face slightly heated. He was a doctor, he was a psychopath, he should not be moved... but something about that menopausal giggling... dear gods... He tried imagining these women in their underwear, but no, that simply raised the horrible idea of being invaded by these women in his office at the hospital and forced to perform a medical exam or a molest n’ murder on them. Muraki closed his eyes for a moment. I am a perverted and deadly killer, I am a perverted and deadly killer, he repeated to himself soothingly. Recovering after a moment, Muraki glanced at the shelves above the mole woman’s head. Row upon row of serene glass and plastic eyes met his. “’E’s cracked,” asserted mole woman, then continued to Vi, “’E’s looking at your little Annabel funny, you know.” Muraki decided to deputise the task of staring at the women around him to Veronica herself, and continued speaking. “However, my most treasured companion has suffered a misfortune.” “That one you’ve got there?” enquired Rose, kindly. “What’s up with her, dear? Give us a look?” “Ahem,” said Muraki. He was determined he would not blush, not if Tsuzuki himself materialised to witness this. With a few quick jerks he straightened Veronica’s legs and pulled her panties down to display the problem. “I am afraid she became jealous of her papa,” he explained to the concerned faces around him. “And –” Muraki broke off. “Madam,” he remarked, wheeling sharply. “Please remove your hand from my behind.” Mabel looked up at him with an alarmingly puppylike expression. “Why?” she pouted. Muraki gritted his teeth. Right, they had asked for it, all of them. “Because I am a psychotic serial killer who will rend the flesh from your bones and use your soul’s energy to fuel dark magicks,” he asserted coldly. “Ooo-oooh, eggy!” snarked mole woman nastily. “You ain’t met my husband, then.” Muraki blinked. This non-sequitur was not the expected response. “No, I have not had that privilege,” he admitted, holding tightly onto Veronica’s arm. He should have prepared some spells, only he hadn’t expected... this. “Oh, you!” giggled Mabel, and poked him rather painfully in the arm as he sat down again. “Ladies, please,” remarked Rose rather anxiously. “Dr Muriel is our guest, and we all know how overexcited people get about medical malpractice these days.” “When they did my spleen...” muttered Vi darkly to mole woman, but mole woman was rummaging in her tub of arms. “Well, yes,” Muraki continued, raising his voice. “Veronica became jealous of... my social interactions, and attempted to imitate them with her fellows, resulting in the injury you see now.” “You’d brung her to life with hoodoo, then?” said mole woman, dropping an arm back into the tub with a hollow plastic clunk and suddenly looking interested again. “I did not intend to,” Muraki explained, a little surprised at such a reaction. “But when one is a caster of spells, one’s place of dwelling becomes redolent with many forces. I understand this may be hard for you to accept.” “That’s what you think,” skinny Vi grumbled in an unpleasantly thin voice, rolling her eyes and clenching her hands around her self-satisfied frump of a doll, which Muraki was now certain was giving Veronica funny looks. “I beg your pardon?” Muraki enquired, desperately clinging to politeness. “Oh nooo we can accept it all right,” the mole woman laughed with undue glee, jerking a thumb at the one member of the group who hadn’t spoken yet, a sad woman in a blue pinny who sat a little back from the circle, staring dreamily into space, her hands empty. “Poor old Doreen done that. Said she wanted them to help with the housework, but they ended up going on a rampage with the vacuum cleaner and spelling Dor herself into a vegetable.” “Ah,” Muraki used force of will to prevent himself from clutching Veronica hard enough to cause her another injury . “Well, fortunately I do not think Veronica has yet reached that stage of self-assertion, but I am concerned to repair her injuries and prevent a recurrence.” “Well now,” said Rose, bouncing her own cloth charge gently on her knee so that it appeared to be jumping up and down and laughing at Muraki. She sucked her false teeth as she considered. “Prevention of doll orgies. That’s a tricky one. I think there’s an article on that in issue 51...” she leant forward to pick up a magazine. “Well I think it’s immoral,” piped up Vi sharply. Ah, at last, frightened revulsion! This Muraki could deal with. He flashed the poor spinster his most hunky-yet-sinister dream doctor smile. “Indeed, the sensual world is replete with dangers,” he commented with a leer, stroking a white finger across Veronica’s painted cheek. But Vi was not appeased. “I didn’t mean that!” she snapped. “I meant your attitude. Have you actually explained the birds and the bees to her? Oh no, you just left her to pick it up from teddy bears, didn’t you!” “I – don’t think – madam,” Muraki stammered, hastily turning Veronica around to face him and covering her ears with his hands. “Now, Vi’s got a point,” Rose conceded, nodding placatingly at her friend. “But look, here’s a helpful article!” she held the magazine at arm’s length and adjusted her little spectacles. ‘Is your doll promiscuous?’ There’s ten top tips, and oh look, they sell dear little chastity belts!” Rose looked up and smiled brightly at Muraki, and at that moment he would have given anything in the world to be in a nice dank shrine performing a nice murder. I am a perverted and deadly killer I am a perverted and deadly I am – OWWWWWW she’s got my *&!£! A pudgy hand had insinuated itself clumsily into his crotch. “Come on, that’s a right silly magazine,” he dimly heard mole woman chiding Rose. “All gimmickry...” As Muraki’s vision cleared and he saw the pentagram which had been hidden under the magazines on the coffee table, Vi started up again – “I suppose you leave those nasty cartoon videos lying around when you go out, do you, Urotski Doobree and what have you? And you expect her not to take an interest? Shame on you!” As Muraki faded gracefully to white, clutching Veronica to his chest, he could have sworn she winked at him. |
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