Ditched and Cleaned

In the morning after the botched romantic night, while getting ready to go to work, Brad said to Emily, “Babe, I’m so sorry about yesterday. I should have told you about the allergy. I just thought that since it’s so rare and I never buy anything with rosehip I didn’t really need to.”

“It’s alright, honey, I know now. Are you allergic to anything else? Latex? TPE?”

“Not that I know of,” Brad responded, not getting the TPE reference or pretending not to. “You?”

“Not that I know of,” Emily repeated his answer. “I’m glad we cleared this up. You are good to go to work? Maybe better to stay home today?”

“Nah, I’m fine. It was just an allergic reaction, and you saved me,” Brad said, brushing his teeth. “Too much work to do, too.”

“Ok, babe.”

“By the way, yesterday you started talking about your day and we got carried away. What was so interesting yesterday?” Brad said, trying to switch the topic from himself.

That was Emily’s way in, to talk about the sex doll.

“Ah, get this: we were called into a potential murder of a young woman, and it turned out a sex doll! Someone just trashed it on the side of 441!”

Brad nearly dropped his toothbrush. “You were there too? I saw the local news report about it. I thought it was out of your jurisdiction, though.”

“And it was, but one of the cops who got there first thought it would be hilarious to call a backup. We were nearby so we rode there too.”

“O-kay, so what happened to the doll?” Brad asked, heading to the closet and putting on his work clothes.

“Well, the guys brought it in and decided to clean it up.”

“Why?”

“They couldn’t leave it on the side of the road, and they thought she shouldn’t stay dirty. It was quite funny, to see how quickly they bonded with her.”

“And where is the doll now?”

“I’m not sure,” Emily said. “At the sheriffs’ office, probably. They’ll wait to see if anyone claims it, especially after the news report. Did you see the funniest thing about it – she had the socks on! The guys just couldn’t get over that.”

“And if no one does?”

“If no one does what?”

“Claim the doll?” It took all Brad’s will power not to call her by name or refer to it as “she.”

“They’ll probably just dispose of it.”

“So, no DNA test to find the owner? Or fingerprints?”

“Why?” Emily asked, bemused. “It’s not a crime, to discard a sex doll. Whoever did it should have disposed of it properly, but throwing it away is not a crime, even on the side of the road. Why spend money on tests when there’s no crime?”

“And what would’ve been a proper way to dispose of it?” Brad asked nonchalantly.

“I don’t know exactly, never had to do it,” Emily said and shrugged her shoulders. “I’d think that the manufacturer would probably have some recycling program for their products.”

“Oh shit, I never thought about that,” Brad thought. “I still have Serena’s original packaging. Could have just sent her back.”

Out loud he said, “You are so brilliant, my love. Well, I’m ready for work now.”

***

Brad couldn’t wait to get home after work. Now that Serena was gone, he needed to get rid of her packaging that was still standing in the deep gun safe.

He came back earlier than Emily on purpose, so that he could just take the box out and burn it. He got to the hunting room, opened it and the first thing he saw was… Serena.

She was seated on the leather sofa, right across from the door. It was obvious that she’d been damaged – her fingers were crooked, the right knee was blown out, but it was also obvious that someone cleaned her up and tried to put her back together. Her clothes were crudely patched up and the holes in the white lace of her tank top and shorts were sewn together with a bright red threat. Some of her hair was missing, but it was carefully pulled back into a ponytail.

On the chest, she had a piece of paper with the message in spooky red letters, “Why did you ditch me, Brad?”

To Be Continued.

Thank you for reading. Part 3 is here, and the first two are embedded in it: