He comes to me, all warm flesh and warm skin, and his touch is like the kiss of the brand, intensely hot across my cold porcelain shell. I gasp when he strokes his fingertips over my surface, leaving trails of warmth, not cold, behind.



He carefully undresses me, unbuttoning each small pearl button, letting me help where I can--mostly, unbuttoning my boots and toeing them off, sliding down my stockings, lifting my arms, or legs, or turning my torso when he requests I do so, the waist joint clicking me into each new position.



He walks around me once my doll self is nude, stroking fingertips at intervals along my stomach, along my shoulders, along the sides of my neck. He stops behind me, and my breath catches as his fingers trace the edges of my keyhole, where the key I haven't yet found will go, to keep me wound up, to keep my clockwork heart beating. Slowly, slowly, he slides a finger inside, running the tip down a wire, plucking it, the vibration thrumming through me like sudden thunder.



I stand and tremble, glass eyes wide, and more of his fingers steal inside my structure, impossible intimacy, unexpectedly sensitive. They tickle across brass struts, cut steel gears, lengths of hammered copper ribbon. They find the main turning gear, clicking it forward, and with a gasp, I feel the clockwork heart in me leap into function.



Soft ticking fills the air, the sound of the clockwork rolling along, the arrival of the extraordinary machine...spurred on by his fingers, working across the workings. I whimper softly, blinking, sensation almost too much, surreal and mechanically perverse. He drives me on, percussive thrums through the strutwork, glissandos played directly across my wiring. Keyless, he makes my heart beat, finding his own rhythms, making them mine...chiming me, plucking me, playing me like a harp built for his hands.



Talented digits, deft inventor's fingers, playing across my internal matrix as I stand and shudder...plucking at the wires, harpstring vibrations through my torso...turning gears, repositioning, realigning, and I realize, no key will wind me this well, no length of cold metal could do what his warm fingers are doing...and DOING...and DOING...

...there are bizarre and distinct advantages to being a clockwork doll...

(Doll display stand and Elizabeth Noir boots can be purchased at All Dolled Up in Lummerland; the dress is Grim Babies' Pretty Poison from their Grim Dollies shop; the hair, skin and eyes come from Draconic Kiss' new doll shop.)