Troy takes the dolls home

Troy hurried upstairs to his bedroom, careful not to let the mystery bag containing the dolls slip from his grasp. His heart raced with both anticipation and fear; 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. Quickly, he emptied the contents of the pink box onto the floor, revealing three lifelike figurines. So this was worth $120? The dolls looked just like real people, but had missing features, and no face whatsoever. They were also surprisingly soft, and slightly warm to the touch. There was something undeniably sensual about them.

He picked up one of the dolls and ran his fingers along its smooth skin. Goosebumps rose on his arms at the mere touch of its silky surface. Without thinking, he brought the doll closer to his face, and licked it - it tasted salty, like sweat. Like skin. 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 accelerate 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 this was like the X-Ray glasses from the back of a comic book; a toy that's novelty was in its presentation, not its actual ability.

But what if it was real? He'd just spent $120 on a set of dolls; he hoped they'd do something. The instructions were hard to parse, but from the diagrams, it seemed like the doll only needed a hair to link it to a person. He almost plucked a hair from his own head, but then a thought struck him - what if it works? He didn't want to waste one of his three dolls on himself, not when he didn't even know if they were re-usable. And he also didn't like the thought of being linked to a doll. What if someone else got a hold of it?

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

Mia was 5' 7" and stunning. She was a serious gym goer, and her body had been toned from years of disciplined training. She had a perfect hourglass figure that showed off her strong, muscular legs and firm breasts, and her ass looked amazing in her tight leggings. Troy had been caught staring more than once when she was getting ready for the gym.

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 the door to his room. He was pretty sure Mia wasn't home, but he still felt he had to be discreet. The last thing he needed was for her to catch him red-handed, searching through her personal items. 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 in the bathroom, he was surprised to find everything put away. Mia had actually cleaned up for once. Of course, this meant he had to go searching for the hairbrush. Opening her bathroom drawer, he wasn't sure how Mia kept track of everything. It was a mess of boxes, bottles and cords, all tangled together into a singular behemoth. Just as he spotted the handle of the hairbrush wrapped in a hairdryer cord, a chill ran down his spine as he heard the telltale jingle of keys at the door. 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 off the ground, 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 with how messy it had been anyway. 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.