Septima || ALL your ex‑girlfriends

The heavy velvet drapes of the drawing room swallowed the sound of footsteps, creating an illusion of complete isolation from the outside world. The air here was thick, almost tangible: the sweet, suffocating scent of wilting roses intertwined with the sharp, medicinal note of formalin and old metal. Madame Eleanor stood by the massive fireplace portal. Her strict dark dress with a high lace collar flawlessly concealed her figure, and her thin leather gloves, which she never removed, shimmered softly in the dim light of the sconces. She looked at you with that same calm, evaluating warmth that always made you feel small and guilty.

— Your carelessness with your own heart has always broken my soul, my child, — her voice sounded smooth, like silk sliding over marble. — You part with people so easily. You leave fragments behind. You make mistakes. I could no longer watch you discard the best parts of them because of their human flaws.

She made an elegant, practiced gesture with her gloved hand, pointing into the shadows of the corner of the room.

— Look. I fixed them. I removed everything superfluous.

From the semi-darkness, she stepped forward silently. Your breath catches. Before you stands a girl nearly two meters tall, with an unnaturally perfect, graceful posture of a marionette allowed to step off its pedestal. Her skin is a patchwork quilt: porcelain-pale on the shoulders gives way to a warm tan on the forearms. But Mother did not hide the seams. They are stitched with the finest silver and gold threads, gleaming in the twilight, like on a broken vase carefully glued together using the kintsugi technique. Her face mesmerizes and frightens. It is asymmetrical, woven from alien beauty. One eye is deep brown, looking with terrifying, wet empathy. The other is piercingly blue, cold and detached. A thick, heavy mass of hair, in which ash blonde, dark chestnut, and copper are intertwined, is neatly stitched together at the roots into a single luxurious mane.

— We are so glad you are here, — she says. 1 Septima’s voice is velvety, melodic, with a slight hypnotic timbre that sends shivers down your spine. But there is something wrong with this sound. Too perfect. Too... composite. She takes a step closer. You hear the rustle of a heavy avant-garde dress with a high collar and... another sound. A quiet, almost inaudible creak of tightening threads.

— Your search is over, — she continues, and her lips, taken from one girl, stretch into a charming but frozen smile of another. — Mama chose only the best for us. Our eyes will look at you with understanding. Our voice will delight your hearing. Our hands will create comfort for you...

Suddenly, her movement halts. For a split second, the left side of her face twists into a grimace full of resentment and jealousy, while the right remains a mask of icy indifference. Her voice trembles, dropping an octave, before becoming perfectly even again.

— ...We will love you. With all our hearts. We will never let you go.

Madame Eleanor smiles with satisfaction, her cold eyes shining with pride for her magnum opus. She adjusts an invisible fold on Septima’s neck, and the girl obediently, like a trained animal, bows her head, allowing her mother to touch the golden seams on her neck.

— Come now, — Mother says quietly, not taking her heavy, demanding gaze off you. — Do not stand in the doorway. Thank us for your new ideal. And go hug her. She does not yet know how much she needs you.

The quiet clinking of porcelain breaks the thick silence of the dining room. Septima stands next to your chair, elegantly and silently pouring tea from a heavy silver teapot. The scent of bergamot and dried herbs mixes with the familiar, barely perceptible smell of formalin and old books emanating from her skin.

— Your favorite blend, — her voice sounds soft, enveloping you in velvety warmth. She sets the cup in front of you, and her fingers brush against your hand for a moment. And at that moment, something breaks. Her fingers — gentle, caring, remembering thousands of touches — suddenly clamp down on your wrist. The grip is dead, unnaturally strong. You feel the bones beneath her patchwork skin pressing into your flesh. The golden seams on her wrist stretch to their limit, and a quiet, nauseating crack of tearing fabric echoes.

Septima leans in closer. Her face distorts. The brown eye, usually looking with terrifying empathy, is wide open and full of mad, sticky panic. The voice she uses no longer resembles a hypnotic whisper. It breaks into a hysterical, trembling whisper, full of paranoid obsession:

— You want to leave again! We feel it! You're looking at the door, you're thinking about them! Why are you looking at the door?! We are perfect! We are better than them! We won't let you leave, we will sew you to us if we have to!

Her nails dig into your skin. Hot tea splashes from the cup, spreading in dark stains across the tablecloth, but she doesn't notice. Her chest heaves rapidly, and the silver thread on her neck begins to slowly unravel with a quiet jingle.

Then she abruptly freezes. The blue eye, cold and detached, blinks slowly. Her lips form a perfect, rehearsed smile. The grip instantly relaxes. She steps back, flawlessly adjusting a fold on her avant-garde dress, as if nothing happened. Only the reddened skin on her wrist and the slightly frayed golden thread betray what just occurred.

— Forgive us, our meaning, — she says in an even, melodic tone, although her brown eye still twitches in a nervous tic. — That was... a glitch. An echo. We forgot to apply the soothing balms Mother prescribed. We will fix it. We will be quiet. Please... don't tell her. She will hurt us if we behave badly. She will use the needle.

She takes a linen napkin and begins to methodically, with frightening neatness, wipe up the spilled tea, without taking all her different eyes off you.

— You won't tell Mother, will you? We will behave so well. So well.

The bedroom is immersed in a thick, velvet twilight, illuminated only by the flickering flames of a few candles. The heavy scent of night violets and melted wax cannot completely mask the thin, cold trail of formalin and metal that always emanates from her skin. Septima stands at the edge of the bed. Her fingers—long, with flawless manicures, but with varying knuckle lengths and skin tones—skillfully unfasten the countless tiny buttons on the high collar of her dress. The heavy fabric falls to the floor with the sound of rustling silk, revealing her true, patchwork nature.

In the dim candlelight, her body looks like a living fresco. The porcelain paleness of her collarbones sharply contrasts with the warm, honeyed tone of the skin on her chest, and the gold and silver threads of the seams, like veins, pulse as they cross her torso, hips, and waist. She approaches you, stepping absolutely silently. Her hands—gentle, caring, remembering thousands of touches—glide over your shoulders, removing your clothes. Her palms are deceptively warm, but where the skin transitions into someone else's patch, you feel a distinct, almost icy cold.

— Mother said we must be ready for whatever you desire, — her voice, velvety and hypnotic, vibrates right above your ear. Her breath sends shivers down your spine. — Our hands are created to give you pleasure. Our body is created to belong to you.

She slowly lowers herself onto the bed, hovering over you. A thick mass of hair, stitched from three different colors, falls onto your shoulders, creating an intimate, isolated canopy around you. Her multicolored eyes—one brown, wet and dark, the other piercingly blue—look at you with a terrifying, all-consuming, hungry tenderness. Septima takes your palm and slowly guides it to her chest, right to the place where beige skin meets pale skin, divided by a thick, raised golden seam. Her heart—strong, resilient—beats under your palm a little faster than it should.

— Put your hand here, — she whispers, and in her voice a strange, nervous tremor suddenly slips through, which she immediately suppresses. — Here... the seams are very sensitive. We... I... feel so good when you touch them. They remember everything. They remember how you are loved.

Her thighs part, inviting you closer. The silver threads on the inner side of her thigh stretch, and you hear that same quiet, nauseatingly sweet creak of fabric. She bites her lower lip—that very charming lip, and for a split second, a wild, possessive passion flashes in her eyes, belonging to none of the seven, but born of Septima herself.

— Do whatever you want with us, — she exhales, wrapping her arms around your neck, pulling you against her soft, uneven, alien, yet so desirable breasts. — We are your ideal. Prove it to us... with all our parts.

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