Troy takes the dolls home

Troy hurried upstairs to his bedroom, gripping the bag with the dolls tightly. He knew Mia would be at the gym today, but if she caught him bringing home a set of dolls, he'd never live it down.

Mia and Troy had met through a mutual friend, Mark. At Mark's urging, they had all moved into a share house together straight out of college, and things had started off great. Unfortunately, Troy had made a few mistakes, like staring too long at Mia's breasts, handling Mia's private laundry, and forgetting to check his headphones were plugged in when he was watching porn, and it didn't take long before Mia decided Troy was a pervert. She'd stayed civil with him around Mark, and until two months ago, her and Troy had developed a begrudging tolerance of one another. Unfortunately, Mark had been offered a life-changing job in Helsinki, and the two were left at the house together. Mark had offered to keep paying rent until he returned next year, so to avoid the hassle of moving, both of them had stayed in the house, at least for now.

Troy let out a sigh of relief as he closed the door behind him. He'd made it to the safety of his room. He emptied the box of dolls onto the floor, wanting to see what $120 in dolls would get him. Three little lifelike figures fell out of the box. Well, semi-lifelike. The dolls were all androgynous, and missing some basic details, like eye color and genitals. And they all had the same exact features. Why would you want three copies of the same doll?

As he picked one of them up, Troy was surprised how soft they were. Their skin was almost elastic, and slightly warm to the touch. Was this some new form of silicone? Without thinking, Troy brought one of the dolls to his mouth, and licked it. It tasted salty, like sweat.

Along with the dolls, there were three pods included in the box, one large enough for each doll. They were squishy and flexible, Troy guessed they were some kind of storage container.

Troy began reading through the instructions for the dolls. Leafing quickly through the opening disclaimer, he was overwhelmed with text. The writing was dense, and definitely read as if it had been translated from another language. It was hard to make heads or tails of it initially, but there was always the diagrams.

One particular section of the manual caught his attention: "To prolong your experience, place the doll(s) in the designated pods overnight while exposing them to moonlight." Moonlight? What kind of new age nonsense was this?

As Troy continued reading, he had to keep pausing in disbelief. These things basically claimed to be voodoo dolls. It sounded too ridiculous to be true, but the book was filled with illustrations and instructions that took everything seriously. Troy assumed the quirky presentation must be the actual selling point of the dolls, kind of like the X-Ray glasses from the back of a comic book.

But Troy couldn't stop wondering if it was real. He'd just spent $120 on these things! He hoped they'd do something. Besides, there wasn't much harm in trying. From what he could make out from the instructions, he'd only need a single hair to link the dolls.

He almost plucked a hair from his own head, but then he worried. If it works, did he really want a doll of himself? He didn't like the thought of being linked to a doll at all. Besides, it would be a waste. He didn't even know if they were re-usable.

No, as Troy thought it through, he couldn't test this on himself, so he moved on to his next logical option. Mia.

Personality aside, Troy had always been a little attracted to Mia. Though he'd never want to be in a relationship with her, he had considered it a couple of times when he watched her leave the house in her gym outfit.

Mia was the perfect test subject, because Troy could watch how she reacted. And if it worked, Troy would rather have a doll of her than one of himself. Troy knew that Mia would have left her hairbrush on top of the vanity in the bathroom. Hopefully there were some usable hairs on it.

Troy cautiously opened his bedroom door. He was pretty sure Mia wasn't home, but he still wanted to be quick and quiet. The last thing he needed was for her to catch him in the bathroom searching through her stuff. He listened for noise around the house as he made his way down the hall to the bathroom. Halfway there, he suddenly felt silly, sneaking on the way to his own bathroom. Mia wasn't even home.

Once he got to the bathroom, he was surprised to find everything put away. Mia had actually cleaned up for once. Of course, that meant he had to go searching for the hairbrush in her bathroom drawer.

As he opened it, it was clear Mia's organisation strategy was to just throw everything in the drawer at once. There was a mix of bottles, boxes and tubes all shoved on top of each other. Just as Troy spotted the handle of the hairbrush, wrapped in a hairdryer cord, he heard the telltale jingle of keys at the door, and a chill ran down his spine. Mia was home.

Panicked, he pulled hard on the brush handle, lifting it out of the drawer along with two or three other objects that had been wrapped in the cable. They fell to the ground with a bang. He swore to himself and picked them back up, trying to untangle them from the cord in the process. Troy tried to remember if he'd closed his bedroom door when he left, or if the first thing Mia would see at the head of the stairs was a set of small nude dolls sitting on the floor beside his bed. He heard the front door slam closed, and the race was on.

Troy shoved everything but the hairbrush back into the drawer messily, and hoped Mia wouldn't notice any difference. There wasn't really a good explanation if she did. Gripping the hairbrush, Troy quickly burst out of the bathroom and power-walked back to his room, as he heard Mia ascend the stairs. They almost collided as she reached the top.

"Hey, watch it!" she yelled as she stopped just short of an impact.

Troy got to his room as he saw the door was, thankfully, closed. "Sorry, I was in a rush."

Mia glanced down the hall to the bathroom, then back to Troy. "Gross. I hope you washed your hands."

Troy smirked and stepped through the door, stealing a glance at Mia as he closed it behind him, still gripping the hairbrush. That was close.