(This story is also featured in my collection Joyous/Decay) The doll shivers in your arms, trembling like a candleflame in the wind, like you used to shake and shudder when you knew you had sinned, when you could feel rejection’s creeping despair just around the corner. Her big button eyes stare up at you, pleading, blue thread fraying from the knotted mass at the center of those dark disks; her mouth moves in soundless whispers, the same words over and over again– ...
(This story is also featured in my collection Joyous/Decay. It is a sequel to Chalk, and might make a bit more sense if you’ve read that.) The teacup trembles for a moment as it tips, your hand shaking beneath the intensity of her gaze, the milky liquid inside pausing at the rim—and then it starts to pour, it spills, a cascade of still-warm tea racing down to stain her patched fabric skin. ...
Stones slipped just beneath the skin, smooth surfaces pressing against dermis, soaking up subcutaneous warmth; opals and moonstones and quartz, agate and topaz and jade all shining in the body’s light, chunky beads filling skin with texture beneath your touch. Once you asked why she went to so much effort, all those tiny cuts and carefully treated scars, all those beautiful things hidden away for no one to see. She always healed so quickly, but she still felt pain, and it always seemed like one or another of her gems was infected. ...