Sold (Part 4 of 8)

Eddie sat alone in the restaurant. Nora had told him she would be alone Friday night and had invited him over to have some fun if he would first teach her his doll spell. He was saddened to tell her he wasn’t available that Friday night.

She asked when he would be free and they agreed to meet Sunday evening. She had insisted that they go to dinner first, her treat, and then do the spell lesson afterward.

Alone at the restaurant, he believed she had ghosted him. She didn’t respond when he texted her Sunday afternoon to verify they were meeting at the restaurant at seven. When he arrived, about twenty minutes early, the greeter had told him there was a reservation in Nora’s name for seven o’clock. At quarter after seven he had sent Nora another text wondering why she was late.

He convinced the staff to seat him. She couldn’t be too far away. He ordered dinner for himself close to eight o’clock and was now feeling stupid. After he ate, he paid the bill and left. Her phone rang eight times and dumped him voice mail. Again.

Was this some petty revenge over how their relationship, such as it was, had started? He couldn’t figure out why she’d started ignoring him.

Before he went to bed, he texted Dave and asked if Nora was mad at him.

In the morning, he’d still not gotten any replies. That Tuesday morning, he realized Madame Livanté was avoiding him as well. He stopped by Jean’s and Dave’s apartment and knocked. A simple spell told him they weren’t home. Another unlocked the door for him. He slipped inside and locked the door behind him.

No one had been here since Saturday morning, according to his third spell. He went to Nora’s bedroom and found some of the clothes he remembered seeing her wearing. A sympathetic location divination couldn’t find the last person who had worn the clothing. The same spell failed on Jean’s and Dave’s clothing.

Since he had nowhere else to be, Eddie sat down on the living room sofa and watched some shows he’d fallen behind on watching. It was still day time. Maybe there were all working or something. He was eating delivered Chinese food around six at night when he accepted the fact that something had happened to them all.

At first, he’d wondered if Nora had figured out how to turn into a doll and thus the spell wouldn’t consider her a person who had worn the clothing. But Jean and Dave couldn’t be dolls too, could they? He laughed at the idea that Nora had gone doll happy and turned all three of them into dolls. But if that was what happened, where had it happened if not here?

He cleaned up dinner, straightened up the couch cushions and left the apartment, locking it behind him. He went home to consider his next move.

*****

“Ah, the one that got away. I missed you so much,” the man said to the doll. “I once told you if I found out what your name was I’d dump you in a landfill. Given the circumstances, that rule is exempted for you, Nora.”

Nora still had no idea what his name was and he didn’t tell her his name this time either. But, she knew her former owner like an infant knows its mother. Not that she had a loving relationship with her former and current owner. It wasn’t even a love-hate relationship.

She was shocked at how quickly the depressive malaise she’d existed in all those months ago returned. It weighed so much heavier in her mind this time.

He hadn’t gloated at all. In fact, other than his claim that he’d missed her, he’d not said anything else to her. This was how he worked, she guessed. The last time he’d acquired her, he’d not spoken to her at all the first few weeks she was there. He was waiting to see if someone would come looking for her. Unlike the last time, he didn’t use her at all.

She feared this time there wasn’t anyone to come looking for her. Jean and Dave she were laying in a bed in a cabin somewhere on the other side of the state also turned into dolls. When she’d started puppeteering them Friday night, they were still able to move on their own. Slowly her grip on them had tightened to the point that they couldn’t move on their own. And that tightening had turned them into dolls. By the time she’d fallen asleep that night they had been fully dollified. Her only hope was they’d escape the spells on their own.

The next night, she was surprised when he entered the room and, instead of taking one of the other dolls out, he stood in front of her. He didn’t say anything she could understand. She had no idea what spell he was casting. As he finished he placed a small, round crystal about the size of a ping pong ball against her forehead. When he pulled it away, it glowed slightly.

Without a word, he left.

*****

Dave could move. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been a doll. He’d never really liked being a doll. And being an ignored doll was the worst hell he’d ever experienced. He believed it was Monday or maybe Tuesday.

“Nora!!” He shouted into the silence.

Jean lay inert on the bed. She was still a doll. He guessed it would be a while before she could move. He’d left her dollifying necklace on her for five days straight once. Except for being far more horny than usual afterward, she hadn’t complained at all.

He called Nora’s phone. She didn’t answer. He left a message and sent a few texts. He was glad no one had shown up to the rented cabin and found him and Jean on the bed. He quickly gathered up their luggage and put it in the car. He sat Jean in the car’s back seat and fastened a seat belt around her. He’d driven only a short distance from the cabin when a car passed him on the service road leading to it. Was that the next set of renters or was that the owner of the cabin headed to the cabin to check it after their rental? Either way, he’d gotten them out there in the nick of time.

He stewed the entire way back home. He didn’t check his messages before his three hour journey commenced. He wouldn’t be home until late Tuesday evening.

*****

Nora was surprised to hear talking coming from a room nearby. Her owner rarely spoke aloud in all her experience with him. If he had any social life, she assumed it was entirely online. He was having an argument with a woman. They were too far away for Nora to hear the words being said. The conversation ended abruptly. About a half hour later, her owner was carrying a doll into the room. He set it up on a doll stand directly in front of her.

She couldn’t get a good look at the doll while owner was in front of the doll. He repeated the ritual with the small crystal on Nora before he left. If she wasn’t perched on a doll stand, Nora would have fallen over she was laughing so hard, though only she could hear it.

Madame Rachel Livanté, wizardry practitioner and instructor stood on the doll stand before her. Rachel’s doll face was frozen in surprise. He had set her down so she was looking right at Nora.

He must have placed Rachel there on purpose, Nora thought. Was he doing it to amuse me? To intimidate me? Or was he doing it to embarrass the wizard? Probably for both reasons. Did he discover he had no more use for you once you’d delivered me to him, Rachel? Or had this been his plan all along? Either way, it served her right.

*****

Nora wasn’t home when Dave got there. He’d been practicing how he’d admonish her for what she’d done and now the steam he’d built up to do that had dispersed.

He’d only brought the luggage up before finding out he wouldn’t be able to confront Nora. With that on hold, he had to deal with getting Jean into the apartment. He felt weird carrying Jean across the parking lot and up three flights of stairs. What could he possibly tell someone if they wondered why he was carrying a sex doll out in the open through the hallways? And what if they recognized that the doll looked a lot like his wife? He hoped it was late enough that he wouldn’t run into anyone.

He looked around for large box or something. He settled on a bed sheet. As he wrapped the doll in the sheet he jokingly thought he should have found a carpet to wrap a body in. It was traditional in movies, wasn’t it?

He made it back to the apartment without being seen, or at least without noticing if he’d been seen. He stood her up on the doll stand she’d purchased a few weeks earlier. The stand conveniently put her in Nora’s room in case he wasn’t home when Nora returned. He wanted to be sure Nora saw her. He went to his home office and wrote on a sticky note: Fix this.

“See what happens when you act like a doll, Jean. You end up getting a sticky note on your forehead.” He placed it so it partially covered both of her eyes. He hoped it would be an annoyance and Jean would try harder to resist the spell.

He was tired. But hunger was starting to gnaw at him. He made dinner. While it cooked, he checked his voicemail. There were three messages from his boss waiting to be heard. He called him immediately before checking his texts.

“Dave? How sick were you? You didn’t call out sick. I was concerned. Do you realize it’s nearly eleven now?”

“No, is it? My system is all out of whack. I’m mostly okay now. It feels like I didn’t move the last three days. I couldn’t get out of bed. I didn’t eat. It was awful.”

“Why didn’t Jean call?”

“She has it too. Whatever it is. She can’t even stand without assistance right now. It’s late. Do you mind if I work from home tomorrow?”

“I’d say yes but we’ve had an emergency pop up. That’s why I called three times. I’m hoping you might look at it as soon as possible. Travis and Willa are completely useless for doing your stuff. If you can get a handle of this tonight, you can no only take tomorrow off but the rest of the week, too. I sent you an email a couple days ago. But while we’re on the phone, let me explain it…”

As Dave heard what was going on, he knew he’d be busy for a few hours. Getting the rest of the week off was worth working while exhausted. “Okay I’ll go open my laptop and read the email?”

“I’ve already send it again so it’s your most recent email,” his boss said. “Hope you and Jean feel better soon.”

“Thanks.”

*****

Nora was surprised when her owner came in and carried Livanté out of the room. He’d mounted the wizard Sunday night, less than a day after receiving Nora. It was now Wednesday. Must have been a really short punishment, she guessed. It was the dead of night when the wizard doll returned to its perch. Nora had wanted to fall over laughing the first time she’d seen Livanté on the doll stand. This time was infinitely funnier. The prim and proper wizard’s hair was matted in place here and there. There were stray bodily fluids streaking her skin. I guess he’s still doing the doll rentals. I’m sure Rachel loves being a sex toy. Serves her right.

Like all schadenfreude, her amusement at Rachel’s plight didn’t really help with her own feelings of depression. She was sure her turn to be a sex toy was coming. The only difference being she would enjoy it a lot more than Rachel.

Weeks passed. Each evening, he performed the ritual with the crystal. After the first week, Nora noticed the glow from the crystal was brighter each time.

Rachel was popular based on her daily rentals. Nora felt funny and was annoyed with herself when she realized she was jealous of the wizard. Nora liked being a sex toy. Why wasn’t he sending me on rent…? That fucking bastard, she wanted to scream. He hadn’t placed Rachel in front of her to amuse, to intimidate, or to gloat. He’d done it to punish Nora, possible to break her already fragile will. He knew she enjoyed being rented. He had her back, his most popular doll rental. And he just left her on a doll stand unused. He didn’t even use her himself. She wasn’t even a sex toy. She was less than that.

*****

Meanwhile, Eddie and Dave finally connected. It was the Saturday a week after Nora’s kidnapping. Eddie was examining Jean who still stood on the doll stand in Nora’s bedroom.

“Wow. This is frightening,” Eddie said. He had hoped to elicit a “What?” from Dave but Dave didn’t enjoy theatrics so he waited patiently for Eddie to continue. “Hmmpf. Nora somehow cast a permanent transformation to someone half a state away from her.”

“What?”

Eddie smiled at that. “What I don’t understand is why it wasn’t permanent for you? Unfortunately, there’s no trace of her spell on you so I can’t see how you being turned into a doll, at the same ridiculous distance, was different from how Jean was turned into a doll.”

“Why doesn’t the necklace restore Jean temporarily?”

“Oh, it does. The spell on Jean reacts immediately to the necklace being placed around her neck. It immediately steals the spell energy stored in the necklace. It’s like Nora knew what she was doing and knew Jean wouldn’t mind.”

“I mind.”

“Yeah. I see that. I think I can restore Jean. But it’ll still take the permanent spell breaking reagents that Livanté was trying to buy a couple months ago.”

“Can we call her up?”

“I’d love too. She went missing the same time Nora did.”

“Do you think they both were kidnapped?”

“Maybe,” Eddie said. He paused, a serious look crossed his face. “I don’t really want to do this. But I’m considering breaking into Livanté’s lair.”

“Lair?”

“Yeah, using magic to open a locked door is easy. Doing it at a wizard’s lair is foolhardy. Who knows what kind of magic traps she’s setup.”

“You said you broke into here and tried to find us. Again, thank you for your candor about that.”

“Sure.”

“Maybe instead of her laboratory, you try to get into her apartment and do the clothing trick?”

“It’s probably just as protected. Although, the consequences of tripping the magic traps there are probably less severe in the more public location of an apartment building. Do you mind being my canary in a coal mine?”

“You want me to stumble around and set off any magic traps she left in her apartment despite you saying it was foolhardy less than a minute ago?”

“It is definitely foolhardy. But that is what I’m asking.”

“Sure, let’s go.”

*****

Dave had seen Eddie cast spells. They were usually very subtle. As he stepped into the apartment, Eddie was flailing his arms, speaking a language Dave couldn’t hazard a guess to identify, and fire was shooting from his eyes. “Did I trip off a protection spell?”

“Six. Yes. I hope I caught them all. You didn’t turn into a house cat, which was a possibility just now, so I think we’re good.”

There were three more traps that Eddie countered as they went off.

“Other than the fire and lightning, the place looks normal,” Dave said.

“Wizards are just people. People who play with fire and lightning. Head that way to the bedroom.”

In the bedroom, Dave said, “No more traps? I’m surprised.”

“Oh, there are more. But they’re on the windows and outer edges of the apartment. We’ve penetrated into the interior it seems. Hopefully she hasn’t trapped her underwear drawer.”

“That feels like a high level of paranoia would be required.”

“You never know. Nothing obviously on the dresser. Check the drawer for clothing I can cast my divinations on.”

A few minutes later, Eddie declared, “Nothing. Does that confirm Livanté was kidnapped or am I just seeing a connection where one doesn’t exist?”

“Maybe it matters when you cast that spell. What if she were somehow, um, shielded – is shielded a good word – shielded only part of the time?”

“I don’t put a lot of stock in the idea. But we really don’t have much else. So, find a bag and put more of her clothes in it. Try not to touch the clothing if possible.”

“I don’t intend to wear her underwear.”

“Suit yourself.”

A few days later, Dave received a call from Eddie. “It worked!”

“You found them.”

“You cut me off. It worked and it didn’t. I was able to connect with Livanté briefly before the connection was cut off. She’s somewhere within ten to fifteen miles away to the east. I got a decent glimpse of a house. That area is heavily wooded. I’ve narrowed her location down to only a few streets after pouring over map web pages with street level images.””

“You still have no car?”

“Correct. That’s why I called you, Dave.”

“I’ll be there faster than the speed limit allows.”

Hours later, Eddie was sure they’d found the right building. Dave got out of the car. Eddie said, “Is it a good idea for you to go knock?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Whoever has Nora probably knows who you are.”

“And they know who you are. So either neither of us should knock or it won’t make a difference.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Eddie said. He got out of the car. At the door to the house, Dave knocked.

A man neither of them knew opened the door. “Yes?”

“Oh, I thought Rachel would be here. Are you her boyfriend?”

“Rachel? I don’t know any Rachel.”

“She was probably here last night,” Dave continued.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know anyone named Rachel.”

As the man was closing the door, Eddie said, “The sex doll you rented wasn’t named Rachel?”

The door swung open. “The guy already picked the doll up this morning. What do you two want?”

“The rental company is like a franchise. We’re just conducting a spot check on the local distributor. Would you mind taking a survey about your experience with the man who facilitated your rental last night?”

“Will it take long?”

“No. Just a few questions. Had you rented this model previously?”

“No, it’s pretty new on the site. There was a waiting list.”

“Would you rent it again?”

“Absolutely. Felt like a real pu… sex organs. Don’t know how you make your dolls. But they are so real it’s unreal.”

“Thanks. R&D loves that kind of comment. Have you done other rentals with this distributor?” Eddie asked.

“I used to use him often. He used to have this other doll I rented several times but it’s no longer listed on his website. That was the only doll I ever felt was enjoying the sex. Weird as that sounds.”

“We don’t judge,” Dave said.

“Not at all,” Eddie said. “The distributor stopped using our dolls for a while and he dropped his old website. How did you find him again?”

“Oh, you don’t know? He has a mailing list. I don’t want to get him in trouble. But he said we shouldn’t reveal the list address to anyone.”

“We wouldn’t want you to feel awkward,” Dave said. “But if he’s bending the rules there how can we be sure he isn’t bending other rules?”

“What other rules?”

“Our concern would be that he’s doing under the table rentals. That’s obviously not your problem,” Dave said.

“Right. Not your problem,” Eddie said. “But, what if he isn’t following the cleansing safety protocols?”

“We make out money selling the cleaning products. And we know how frequently it’s reordered,” Dave said. “We can compare that to the number of reported rentals. If he knows how this works, what if he isn’t using the cleaner on these potentially unreported rentals.”

“He probably isn’t doing this,” Eddie said.

“No, of course not, it would endanger his customers,” Dave said.

“A dishonest person wouldn’t endanger his customers, would he?” Eddie said.

“I’ll get you the address.”

“We’re sure it’s nothing,” Eddie said.

“Sure,” Dave said, “We’re only following him around because we like to travel. Not because there have been any complaints about him.”

In the car once they’d said good bye to a not so satisfied customer, Dave said, “We did that together rather well.”

“Yeah, we did the old ‘good cop’, ‘all criminals are conscientious cop’ routine very well.”

“We can be pretty sure Livanté was rented out as a doll last night,” Eddie said.

“Could she have ended up like that because Nora’s old boss found her?” Dave said.

“Maybe. Problem is the old boss has been eluding us for a while now.”

“We haven’t really been relentless in pursuing him. I can round up the guys again.”

“The guys?” Eddie asked.

“You weren’t involved when we rescued Nora. We had a whole team of guys ready to pound whoever had been renting her out. They’ll be glad we’re back on the trail.”

*****

Dave made several hands free calls on the drive back home. Several of the guys wanted to meet immediately. Eddie agreed to it and they returned to Dave’s apartment.

Dave went into Nora’s room immediately. “Enough fooling around, Jean. That bastard doll renter has Nora and…” She was already turning human at that point.

“He isn’t getting away this time,” she said.