Summary: Tish plays ladies maid to Lucy, who by the end doesn't really notice.
1
Tish Jones tried not to tug at the hem of her too-short uniform. She tried not to move at all. If she stood stock still she'd blend into the background. She hoped.
But he always saw her no matter how hard she tried to hide, made it clear that she was always at least in the corner of his eye, if not its center. Somehow he always made her feel as if she were standing naked under a spotlight, and him with a magnifying glass.
And because she couldn't hide from him, she could never hide from Lucy.
Lucy complained about the cut of Tish's uniform once, at the very start. Her husband took her into their rooms for a "conversation." He came out 15 minutes later, whistling. She didn't come out until the next day, makeup carefully applied around a set of bruises on her neck. Tish almost felt sorry for her until Lucy cornered her briefly on the stairs between decks, hissing. "I am his wife. He would do anything for me, burn a city just to make light for my dinner. Watch your step. You won't interest him forever."
2
"I think you could use some help in your dressing room, my dear," he said languidly to his wife sitting stiffly opposite him at the table. The Doctor crouched at the base of his chair, in use as a footstool. Tish stood to one side and slightly behind, holding a bottle of wine. It was a job she didn't mind. It gave her and the Doctor a chance to exchange the occasional glance. How he could get so much meaning into a few seconds of eye contact--oh God, HE was saying something to her.
"Master?"
"Hard of hearing, are we? Come closer and bend down so you can hear me better, then." He waved his hand forward without turning around. Hesitantly, she came up to his shoulder and bent down, careful not to spill the bottle she carried in her suddenly trembling hands. A little more, signalled the hand. She bent down further. Stop. He turned his head and addressed her cleavage.
"I said, my Lucy is looking a little out of sorts, don't you agree?" She said nothing, but looked across the table at his wife, who was looking daggers at her. When her eyes slipped from Tish back to her husband, though, they seemed to lose their focus, as if she were looking through him to the back of his chair. Lucy's usually perfect hair was askew. Her clothes look slept in, and she was still in yesterday's makeup. Her fingernail polish was down to a few ragged blots of color.
"My poor little doll," he cooed, "my porcelain Lucy, you're looking a bit chipped. We can't have you appearing like that, darling, not when I've sacked a continent for your closet, now, can we? Little Tish here will start taking care of you." He snapped his fingers and Tish stood up straight. "See to her," he said abruptly. "I want her looking immaculate at all hours. Perfect from head to toe."
He knocked the Doctor out of the way, a deft kick to the old man's ribs that sent him sprawling. He stepped delicately over the groaning man and raised his wife out of her chair. "Now then, darling, this nice little girl is going to go play paper doll with you. Thaaat's right, off you go to your rooms to get aaaalll freshened up."
He signaled Tish, who appeared at Lucy's elbow and led her off, spitting with anger. As she turned, Tish felt a hard pinch on her ass and bit down a yelp. His raucous laughter chased her down the halls.
3
"You stupid cow," Lucy sulked from the bed. Tish remained silent, moving around the room gathering up what she would need to get Lucy ready for dinner that night. Days had gone by, days of being called "slut," "bitch," "cunt" while she did Lucy's hair and nails, washed Lucy's face, made sure Lucy's lipstick was on straight, picked out the perfect colors to set off Lucy's luminously pale skin and hair.
She tried to remove herself from the situation, to eye Lucy as dispassionately as if she really were a paper doll, a lovely lifesize cut-out that she could dress up from an endless wardrobe of riches. And then she would remember the nights when she and Martha would get ready for a night out, borrowing each other's things, critiquing each other's outfits, giggling in the mirror--
She couldn't think about Martha. Martha was out walking the world. Martha would save them. She couldn't think about Martha.
Lucy's foot caught her just then, tripping her and sending shoes, silk dresses and a Lalique perfume bottle flying. "Watch your step, bitch," snarled Lucy. "That perfume bottle's worth more than your life, let alone the perfume in it."
"Oh I rather think not," said Tish hotly, before she could stop herself. "I rather think not." She picked herself up out of the puddle of perfume and backed Lucy up against her headboard. "I think my life's pretty safe here, in truth. As long as he wants...my sister, I think my life's pretty safe." Don't think about what else he wants, Tish, don't think about it, she chanted in her head.
That night after dinner he had her beaten for breaking the perfume bottle. "Smells like a fucking duty free shop in Lucy's boudoir," he said. "Mind you don't leave any marks, gentlemen. I like my maids in good trim. Don't look away from me, Tish, and I'll make sure this doesn't take too long. One more strike for each time you look away." His eyes never left hers, malicious glee, and something else, radiating. He bounced Lucy in his lap. "Count them, little maid."
"One--" flinch-- "Two--"
"Ah-ah, you looked away. Plus one..."
"Master, how many strikes?" said one of the men. "You didn't say."
His face broke out in a huge grin. "I didn't, did I?"
4
Lucy sat in the bath with one heat-pink leg in the air, Tish holding it by the foot as she soaped Lucy's leg. Tish picked up the razor.
"Isn't that pretty," said Lucy dreamily.
"Sorry--ma'am--what?"
"Your hand, holding my foot. The contrast. I'm as pale as milk. You're the color of caramel candy, aren't you? That's a sweet combination. Dulce de leche, isn't it." Unsettled, Tish began shaving Lucy's leg.
"I know why he fancies you, little cunt." Tish shifted her grip on Lucy's foot. "Women, we know each other, don't we? Don't have to be queer to see beauty in each other."
Tish put the finished leg back into the water and picked up the other foot. "You are very, very beautiful." Tish began lathering the second leg. "It's all right. You can't help it. None of us can help anything now, can we. We never could. We just didn't know it, until he came."
Tish put the shaven leg down, gesturing for Lucy to stand. Lucy stood and obediently put one foot up on the rim of the tub, spreading her legs.
"Such soft little hands," Lucy murmured, looking down as Tish soaped her. "He hasn't had you yet, has he? No, I think I'd know. I think I'd smell you on him. I think he'd make sure I smelled you on him." Tish shaved in silence, setting her mouth in a straight line. "I wonder--does he ever smell you on me?"
5
The first time Tish helped Lucy dress, she found a mark the size of her fist on Lucy's outer thigh. She bruised easily, Lucy said, ran into a table. Silly, really.
Bruises blossomed all over Lucy in the months that followed, at first only where the Master--or Tish--would see them. Fresh purple, brackish brown, sickly yellow, marching down her pale upper arm where he'd shaken her. Pansies on snow, thought Tish, pulling out a longer-sleeved dress to hide them.
It was hardest when Lucy had bruises on her face. Tish would have to work serious magic with concealer and powder to mask them, working gently around the blackened eye or swollen lip that more and more often presented themselves to her.
Eventually Tish gave up.
"It's all right," the Master smiled, spinning Lucy like a top. Her full skirt swirled far out, nearly to the waist, revealing old bruises on her calves and new strap marks on the backs of her thighs. "Not to worry, little ladies maid, I prefer the natural look these days."
6
In the end, Lucy barely even curled her lip at Tish. Her eyes flicked past the long red dress spread out on the bed, like a river of blood flowing from the crisp white sheets. Tish gently wrestled her into it, zipping up the back and fastening the halter. She pushed Lucy down into a chair before the vanity, where she stared past the mirror with expressionless eyes--one rimmed in purplish welts--while Tish brushed her long blonde hair.
"He wanted me once," she said. Tish made a non-committal noise as she back-combed and pinned. "He did. The day we met...he showed me...all the world ending, always ending, everything burning, and he wanted me." Her eyes suddenly focused and took in Tish's face, catching red-rimmed eyes in the mirror.
"I smelled you on him yesterday."
Tish pulled back for a moment. Lucy didn't move, and Tish went back to cautiously arranging her hair.
"He saved you till the very end. The cherry on the sundae. Though I doubt you had a cherry to take, slut." But Lucy's spirit wasn't in it, and she lapsed back into passivity.
"It's time, isn't it?" she said, as Tish prodded her out of the vanity chair. Tish nodded, steering her towards the door. "He has your sister, you know." Tish nodded again, lips tight, holding back tears.
"It's all right, Tish, it ends now." She looked down at her pale hand, deep red nails, framed against the au-lait skin of Tish's arm. "He'll end it now." She stopped them in the hallway outside the conference room and looked into Tish's face, watching the tears finally spill over.
"Do I look all right?"