House of Dolls 4 Read online

  “I think they’re small,” she said, squeezing them again.

  Catherine reached her hand back to try to unzip her dress but couldn’t reach the zipper.

  “Need help?” Roman asked.

  “Such a gentleman,” she said, turning and re-straddling his waist. “Then again, I’ve promised to suck your dick.”

  She placed her hands on the front of his pants, squeezing his penis and testicles as he unzipped the back of her dress.

  “Have you ever had sex in the air?”

  “I have not, but I don’t think it’s the best idea for the daytime.”

  “It’s pretty fun,” she said, blowing him a kiss. “I’ve only done it once, but he seemed to enjoy it.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Roman didn’t know how experienced Catherine actually was. At times she seemed like she knew what she was doing, but other times it seemed like Roman was the second or possibly the first guy she’d ever been with.

  She scooted her knees back, bending forward and unzipping Roman's pants, then taking his cock in her mouth even though it was only half erect.

  He felt her teeth on it for a moment, but then she let up.

  Catherine started making loud slurping sounds, something that had thrown Roman off the first time she had given him a blow job.

  He didn’t know where she had picked this up, and at first it had sounded a little strange, but now he was used to it. Now it sort of turned him on.

  She kept at it for a moment, then pressed herself back. Her wind power came over her shoulders and swirled around his cock and balls, which felt incredible.

  He placed his hands on Catherine’s ass, lifting up the ends of her skirt and massaging her cheeks. She was wearing a thong, and she moaned as Roman started to pull the string away.

  She turned her ass toward him, Roman easily slipping inside her due to her wetness. With her back to Roman, her hands on his thighs, Catherine began to move up and down. She looked at him over her shoulder as a strand of hair fell in her face.

  Roman stared at the ceiling for a moment, seeing the same crack in it that he’d noticed before.

  If he had his ability to animate inanimate objects, he would smooth over the crack to fix the eyesore.

  This thought caused him to smile. As Catherine bounced on his cock, Roman silently laughed that he’d become infatuated with the stray crack on the ceiling.

  Even as she continued to fuck him, he glanced at his two dolls, which were still parked on his couch.

  Roman remembered what it had been like for them to have life, and suddenly he felt guilty for doing what he was doing in front of them.

  Trying to get back into the action, Roman placed his hands on Catherine’s ass and moved her to the side, then took a position on top after she arched her back some.

  “Pull my hair,” she said as he continued to move in and out of her. “And fuck me harder—make me come.”

  Roman did as he was told, now just going through the motions, trying to return to the situation at hand and failing.

  He willed himself to orgasm in an effort to be done with it, but it wasn’t happening, at least not until Catherine began whispering for him to finish, her voice growing louder and louder as the friction finally started to rub him in the right way.

  It happened eventually, and there was nothing glorious about it aside from the burst of euphoria that spread through them, lasting for less than ten seconds and leaving as quickly as it had come.

  He slowly pulled out of her. Catherine rolled to the side and headed to the restroom, cupping herself as she walked.

  Now on his back, Roman looked up at the crack in the ceiling and curled his fingers, wishing he still had his power.

  “It could be worse,” he reminded himself, but that didn’t stop him from feeling empty in some way.

  “What’s that?” Catherine called from the bathroom.

  “Nothing.”

  “Sheesh, that was a lot of jizz,” Catherine said as she returned to the bed and cuddled up next to him, still in her skirt. “Did you like that?” She asked, then kissed Roman’s cheek. “Want me to suck your dick some more?”

  “It was fine,” he said. “I’m just tired. It was a long night.”

  “What do you want me to do differently?” she asked, a hint of guilt in her voice.

  “Nothing. Everything was fine. It’s just been a long night.”

  “You should just be honest with me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What you really want to do with me? Let’s…” She looked away from him.

  “What?” he asked, reaching for her. Catherine refused to look at Roman, not until he pulled her closer to his body.

  “If you want to try different things, or want me to wear something sexy or whatever, I am into it. We can do crazier stuff, if that’s what you’re into. I haven’t really tried much, but we can.”

  “Yeah, um, I guess I should say the same for you,” Roman told her. “If you want me to try something else, or… Well, I don’t think I can wear something sexy for you…”

  She laughed. “That’d be funny.”

  “But you should just be clear with me about what you want and we’ll make it happen.”

  “I am being clear with you.”

  “I feel like with sex, people are rarely clear with each other.”

  “In an unhealthy relationship, yes.”

  Roman took a deep breath. “I’m not saying that’s what this is.”

  “Sometimes it feels that way.”

  “I’m just going through a lot right now. You understand that.”

  “And I’m not? I still barely have any money, and I…” She turned away from Roman again.

  “What is it?”

  “I know it might not be a good idea for me to return home, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll stay in Centralia.”

  “I understand,” he said.

  “Do you want me to stay here?” she asked, her voice quivering in vulnerability.

  Roman looked over at his dolls again, and from there back to Catherine.

  “I don’t know what I want anymore.”

  Rather than get angry at him, which Roman assumed she would do, Catherine merely let out a sigh. “There’s something we can definitely agree on.”

  “Let’s just get some rest and continue to work things out. I’m glad you came over.”

  “Are you really?”

  “Sure.”

  “You still want me to suck your dick?”

  “It’s fine.”

  Chapter Two: Dreams and Questions

  Roman pulled a wall of concrete from the floor, blocking Ava’s fireball. He lowered the ceiling, trying to take a swipe at her with a long tentacle made from building material, but the fire user zipped around the gym to avoid his attacks.

  He’d already given some of his power to Coma, the masked doll on his left conjuring up something fierce.

  That something came in the form of dozens of spheres made of concrete, which she lobbed at Ava.

  Roman’s teacher spun in the air, dipping down to the ground as if she were diving into a pool of fire. The plumes blasted across the room, and Roman was barely able to get out of the way in time.

  He now stood on a raised platform, the ceiling lowering and forming steps for him. Roman ran along them as he advanced upon Ava.

  He saw Coma doing the same, the ends of her black dress flapping as she moved faster than he could.

  Her hands were wrapped in steel now, which she used to throw a few fists at Ava.

  The fire user flashed behind Coma, slapping her hand on the doll’s back and igniting her body.

  Roman felt a heavy weight in his heart. He also felt disappointed that Ava had gone for such a cheap move.

  Then again, in a fight against a real elementalist, this was something he would have to be prepared for.

  Roman was just about to reach Ava when she fell to the ground, the floor of the gym spilling over h
er and pressing her body flat.

  Panic rose in Roman’s chest.

  He hadn’t been the one to attack her, which meant that Margo…

  Roman glanced left and right, spotting Abby standing at the far end of the gym. The dreamwalker wore a trench coat, high-waisted black pants, and a bolo tie.

  As he lowered to the ground, Roman started to understand what this really was—that none of this was real.

  He met the woman with hazel eyes and a masculine jawline, and his first response was a shake of his head.

  “Look who’s happy to see me,” Abby the dreamwalker said, offering him a pleasant smile.

  “Sorry,” Roman told her as he approached the woman, the background fizzling behind him. The two of them now stood in Mystery Hills Park, where Celia was buried.

  “How’s Nadine?” Roman asked. “I’ve been trying to send her messages, but…”

  “I’m not here to talk about Nadine. Not today.”

  “Then what are you here for?”

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about you, Roman, and I know the last month has been very hard on you. I am a psychometrist by trade who specializes in dreamwalking, as you know. So I’m not able to tell you your future or give you any hope in that regard, but I do think—and this is just a personal belief—that good things are on the horizon.”

  “You think I’ll get a raise at the bodega?”

  She laughed, motioning for Roman to walk with her. “No, you’re too terrible of an employee to be worthy of a raise.”

  “Damn, I really could use a new flat.”

  “You mean the one the government is already providing you for free isn’t good enough?”

  “Come see for yourself in person one day. But no, it’s a basement apartment, one large room and a bathroom with a paper-thin door. Not that I can complain; at least I’m not in jail.”

  Abby stopped and turned to him, the stars sparkling above her. “I will make you one promise. If you’re ever incarcerated, I will pull you completely into a dream. You can live any way you’d like here, but just be aware that it will turn you into a vegetable in the real world. I would be able to sustain it as long as I’m alive, so hopefully I would live past you, your body would die, and you would just forever exist within a dream.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  “I’ve done it for others. So I suppose there is some hope there, that you could become a vegetable and live in a dream,” she said, smiling again.

  Roman smirked. “Yes, some hope.”

  “Actually, I brought you here today to spend some time with Celia. I thought you’d like that.”

  “You did what?” Roman asked, his limbs tingling.

  “It isn’t the real Celia, clearly, but it is pretty close considering she’ll be constructed of all the memories you have of her. Obviously, I wanted to get your permission before I called her here.”

  Roman gulped. “Are you serious?”

  “I wouldn’t show up in your dreams if I wasn’t.”

  “Please, I would just like to speak to her, to see her…”

  Abby stepped aside. A blistering barrage of light started to form a cocoon in front of her, and Celia eventually stepped out. The beautiful redhead saw Roman and immediately went to him, collapsing in his arms, Roman already sobbing as he hugged her.

  “It’s you, it’s you,” he kept saying. “Celia.”

  “Roman,” she whispered.

  He pressed himself away from her, both hands on her shoulders. “How are you? How are you feeling?”

  “I feel fine,” she said. Abby started to back away and, before he could wave goodbye to her, she was gone.

  “Celia…”

  “It’s so nice to be at the park,” she said, taking Roman’s hand and turning. The sky brightened as the sun came up and a cool breeze moved through the trees.

  “You always liked this park,” he reminded her.

  “It’s good to get out into nature, to remember where we all came from, not the big city.”

  “Agreed.”

  “How was work today?” she asked as they walked.

  “I don’t want to talk about work.”

  “Don’t be so defensive about it,” she said with a playful squeeze of his hand. “Just tell me how it was. It’s good to get things off your chest.”

  “Work was work.”

  “So it wasn’t that bad?”

  “A strange guy came in, but other than that it was the same old bodega stuff. Put up product, rotate things, that sort of work.”

  “You weren’t at the immigration office?”

  “Sure, I was at the immigration office,” Roman said, realizing the limitations of this lucid dream.

  “And how was Kevin?”

  “He’s the same as always. A little annoying but quiet, keeping to himself.”

  “And Selena? She still causing trouble for you?”

  Roman shook his head. “No, they sent her for retraining. Hopefully they’ll just keep her there.”

  Celia laughed. “That would be great, wouldn’t it?”

  “It would.”

  “Let’s walk to those trees over there,” she said, leading him along a dirt path.

  “We could just lie here,” Roman told her, gesturing toward a patch of grass.

  “Sure,” she said, and as Roman looked at the ground, he waved his hand over it and the grass flattened. He noticed he was wearing a jacket, so he took it off, then took control of the fabric and made a blanket for them to sit on.

  “I didn’t know you could do that,” Celia said as she took off her shoes and sat on the blanket.

  “It’s a new trick I learned.”

  The ground began to rumble, the dream slipping away.

  Roman reached out for Celia and was immediately yanked upward toward the sky, everything swirling around him as the sound of his own screams met his ears.

  Roman blinked his eyes open to find himself back in his flat, Catherine returning from the restroom and settling next to him. He was about to curse when a mental message came in from the last person he was expecting to contact him.

  I will be at your place in five minutes.

  “Hey, good morning, you’ve got to go.”

  Roman lightly tapped Catherine on the shoulder, and the white-haired wind user blinked her eyes open.

  “W-what?”

  “My sponsor is coming. It’s a long story, but basically, I could be in trouble if they see anyone else here.”

  “Really?” she asked as she pressed herself up. Catherine had a dazed look on her face, her hair a mess. “You’ve never mentioned that before.”

  “It never came up.”

  She was still in the dress she’d worn when she’d come to Roman’s place, and as she slipped out of bed, she straightened her hands over the front of her outfit. Her ass cheeks peeked out of the bottom of the skirt as she did so.

  “I should have taken my clothes off,” she said as she put her jacket on. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It didn’t cross my mind.” Roman was already at his wardrobe, changing shirts and pants. As he moved across the room toward the bathroom, he ran his hand through his hair, trying to fix it.

  “Are they coming right now?” Catherine asked, sitting down again.

  “I’m sorry, you’ve got to go,” Roman told her, immediately coming to Catherine’s side. “I hope you don’t think I’m trying to kick you out.”

  She squinted at him. “But you kind of are…”

  “These are real serious people. I mean, they took away my fucking superpower, so I’m trying to be on best behavior because…” Roman buried his head in his hand. “I know I’ve said this before, but I really want my power back. To be given something like that and then have it taken away is just…”

  “I know, I know,” Catherine said, coming to his side.

  “And then I can also get you money.”

  “I know…”

  “You are incredible,” he told her, his hand droppi
ng to her ass. “I’m sorry for asking you to leave, for…” Roman took a deep breath. “For being myself. I’m sorry for being myself.”

  “Who else would you be?” she asked with a chuckle.

  “Something else, someone else. Anyway, I’ll spare you a running monologue of what I’m feeling right now. Please leave, and we’ll meet soon.”

  “I’ve already called a teleporter,” she said with a yawn, and as the words left her lips, Roman noticed a powdery scent in the air.

  He turned to see bits of particles falling from the ceiling to slowly form a man in the typical Centralian teleportation outfit, which meant this was from a regulated service.

  “Bye, Roman,” Catherine said as she stepped forward, slowly turning to particles herself and then disappearing in a matter of moments.

  Once they were gone, Roman walked over to the space where they’d just been standing. There had been no disturbance, even if it had looked like the man’s dust had fallen from the ceiling.

  After he was dressed, he stepped into the bathroom to fix his white hair and wash his face, and not a moment too soon.

  Roman heard a knock at the door and, after taking a quick look around his bedroom to make sure it didn’t look like he’d had sex last night, he answered it.

  “Ava,” he said to the redhead who went by the exemplar name of Plume. Her hair was in a bun, her black eyes all but hollow as she looked at Roman. He heard a bark and glanced down to see Bonbon, her white lapdog.

  “Roman.”

  “Hi, Bonbon,” he said, crouching to pet the dog.

  She barked and glanced up at her owner, then looked back at Roman as she came in for more pets.

  “Is this visit for pleasure?” Roman asked her, instantly feeling stupid for phrasing the question that way.

  “I’m not getting any pleasure out of this,” she told him.

  “You know what I mean.” For a moment, he couldn’t make eye contact with her. Every time he tried, his head would gradually tilt away so he was looking just past her.

  “I see things are…” Ava looked into his home, at his two dolls sitting on the couch with Casper tucked between them. “About the same.”

  “I’m just doing what you—I mean, what the Council and the Centralian government—asked me to do. I’m waiting to hear the verdict on my case, to know if I will get my power back. So, no, it’s not pretty,” he said, lifting his hand at his apartment, “but I’m trying to keep my head down.”