He chickens out

Joseph woke the next morning with a hard-on pressed against Halie’s bare thigh. The blonde lay exactly where he had left her the night before, legs slightly parted, neutral expression locked in place, brown eyes fixed on the ceiling. Linsey was on his other side, still posed with that big molded smile. Morgan sat upright in the chair across the room, hands folded, staring at nothing.

He stretched, rolled onto Halie, and pushed into her without ceremony. Her body gave the same soft resistance it always did. He took his time, hands roaming over her B-cups, thumbs circling the stiff pink nipples, then shifted to Linsey for a while, using the smiling blonde’s mouth until he finished there. Afterward he cleaned them both up, adjusted their positions so they looked neat again, and headed downstairs.

The rest of the collection stood where he had left them. Ariel still faced the floor with that slight downward tilt. Lisa kept her permanent scowl. Anna remained blank. Joie waited on all fours near the couch, mouth open. Spencer stood nearby, still naked, still erect from the night before.

Joseph used Joie first, long and slow, while he scrolled through local news on his phone. More missing-person reports. No names he recognized yet. He finished, wiped off on Joie’s cheek, and stood.

“Time to deal with the station,” he said to no one in particular. “Jennifer’s been delayed long enough.”

He dressed, posed Ariel back into the passenger seat of the car so she could “watch,” and drove across town. The police station sat on a quiet side street, two stories of concrete and glass with a small parking lot out front. Joseph parked a block away and sat for a long minute staring at it.

Uniformed officers came and went. A marked cruiser pulled in. Someone in a suit walked out carrying a folder. She was a hit curvy black woman with a cup of coffee in her free hand. She bakenced it against her boobs to open the frint door. The building looked solid, busy, watched.

Joseph’s hands tightened on the wheel. Was that folder information about him?

He gulped.

They already know people are disappearing. Maybe they researched the glove. Maybe they have cameras on every corner and some tech guy is watching me right now. Jennifer could be locked in the safest room they have, surrounded by the best officers in the city. One wrong move and half the department comes down on the warehouse.

He sat there longer than he meant to, engine idling, Ariel sitting rigid beside him with her hands folded and her eyes empty. The idea of walking in, freezing the whole place, and walking out with Jennifer suddenly felt a lot less simple than it had that morning.

He put the car in reverse, turned around, and drove away without getting any closer.

On the way back he talked to Ariel again, voice flat.

“Your friends at the station get to keep her a little longer. Lucky them. Lucky her. You better hope they keep your daughter fully protected in there. Because when I get her, I'm taking out my frustration. You are to blame for bothering me when I just wanted to watch a movie.”

She didn’t respond as he spoke so casually about how he'd take and ravish her daughter. Had she known what would happen she would have chosen not to see that movie when she did.

He returned the car to the warehouse, carried Ariel back inside, stripped her, and set her against the wall with the others. Lisa, Anna, Ariel. Three older dolls in a row. He left them there and went upstairs to the bedroom, still thinking.

There had to be a better way in. A quieter way. Something that did not involve walking straight through the front doors of a police station that might already be looking for people like him.

He needed fresh air to think and forget about the scary police.

He was still turning the problem over when he stepped back outside later that afternoon to clear his head. He had only gone a few steps down the sidewalk when he collided hard with someone coming the other way.