When she was sure the man had left, Dolly stood and stretched, working out the cramps that had set into her legs from sleeping in the undersized bed.

“Right- Let’s give him five minutes to get clear of the building, and then we can get to the nearest police station,” said Sylvie.

Dolly was puzzled.

“You mean…leave?” she asked.

Sylvie stared at her.

“We don’t leave,” Dolly informed her.

“Are you nuts? That asshole practically kidnapped us, and you’re just going to stay here? Have fun being his little Lolita, I’m out of here!” Sylvie grabbed a pair of Dolly’s shoes that had been neatly lined up by the edge of the bed, struggled for a few minutes to cram them onto her larger feet, and stormed barefoot out of the room. Dolly sat calmly at her frilly white vanity table to comb her hair, which the man had tangled by playing with it. From the foyer, she could hear the sounds of sobbing and thumping. She placidly started counting to a hundred brush strokes.

Sylvie returned to the bedroom, hands and eyes red. “The door doesn’t unlock from the inside,” she said, an edge of terror in her voice.

“I told you we don’t leave,” said Dolly.

Sylvie slumped to the ground, hugging her knees and shaking. Dolly moved to kneel next to her, awkwardly petting her hair as the man did when she was upset.

“What does he want with us? Why is he locking us up here? He isn’t- he isn’t going to…” Sylvie choked out.

“We’re his dollies. When he finds a pretty girl lying somewhere people don’t sleep, he knows she’s a dolly somebody didn’t love enough, and he takes her home to love her himself. Nobody loved me and I had no home, so he found me sleeping in a park and took me home. He is a little strange, but he will love you more than anything. You’re safe here.”

“We aren’t safe! He’s a kidnapper, Dolly! And he sounds completely bloody nuts. Have you tried climbing out the windows?”

Dolly coldly stood, sat back down at her vanity, and began to brush her hair again.

“I told you we don’t leave.”

Dolly hated Sylvie. She knew the man would be angry if she wasn’t nice to her new sister, but Sylvie clearly wasn’t a Good Girl. She was going to cause trouble. She was going to argue. She was going to move. And then the man would be so angry that she wasn’t really a dolly! She didn’t like when the man got angry.

Most of her old sisters had been grateful to the man for food and shelter, at least before they got sick and started begging the man for drugs. Bad Girls did drugs, not good dollies, and so the man got angry. Sylvie wasn’t even going to be good her very first day, though.

But Dolly knew how hard it was to be good. She was a Bad Girl sometimes, when the man wasn’t there, and got food for herself from the kitchen. She would be nice to Sylvie, and maybe Sylvie would learn to be good and she could have a sister forever this time. She stood and walked out of the bedroom. Sylvie, staring at the floor, paid no attention to her. Dolly pulled random items out of the refrigerator, then darted back to the bedroom, giggling, and let her little bundle of food fall at Sylvie’s feet.

“See?” she said, “Sometimes I’m a bad girl too. He gets excited and forgets to feed me, so I feed myself!”

She smiled, hoping Sylvie could understand that even a very bad girl could be good and could be loved. Sylvie gave her a tiny crooked smile. The girls spread out Dolly’s haul: bread, cheese, pickles, and a can of whipped cream. Sylvie wrinkled her nose as Dolly spread the whipped cream on bread to make a dainty whipped cream sandwich, cut diagonally as the man cut sandwiches. She grabbed the can and shot a huge dollop directly into her mouth.

“That’s not ladylike!” cried Dolly, laughing. In response, Sylvie merely sprayed whipped cream at Dolly. Dolly shrieked, grabbed the can from her hands, and returned the favor. Sylvie lunged for it, but Dolly held on tightly. The two girls rolled around the bedroom floor, the can firing whipped cream everywhere as they battled for it. Eventually, the can was completely empty, and they were exhausted from laughing. They were lying panting on the ground when Dolly heard the sound of the man fumbling with his keys at the door.

“Quick!” she hissed, shoving the remnants of the food under the bed and trying the clean the whipped cream from her hair, face, and dress. His footsteps echoed in the hall, and she dived onto the bed, pulling Sophie after her. When he entered, they were lying still, being good, but the room was obviously in a shambles, a fine spray of cream covering every surface.

“Oh, my poor dolly! Your little sister has been bad, hasn’t she? You are such a Good Girl, you aren’t the sort of girl who does naughty things like this! But no- you have a awful look of guilt on your little dolly face. How could you betray me so, my little dolly? I thought you were the only one who would not betray me! I suppose it is only a little naughtiness, but still- you will be punished. A Time Out is in order, my little dolly!” he said.

He scooped her up, in the same fashion as he had done the previous day, but not at all tenderly, and carried her to the closet, where he sat her down on the floor. He spent a brief moment arranging her skirts, before closing and locking the door.