Elizabeth went to Swanson’s Children’s World at the mall to pick out a last minute something for her cousin’s baby shower. Babies weren’t really Elizabeth’s thing. She was thirty-four years old and had never even had sex, much less a baby. Strolling the aisles was giving her a headache. Then something on an upper shelf caught her eye.

A doll. The thing was, the doll closely resembled Elizabeth as a teenager. She was wearing a sort of cheerleader’s outfit in the colors of Elizabeth’s high school. Maybe the hair was a slightly different color, a bit lighter than Elizabeth’s hair was now, and in a somewhat different style, but maybe it was the style of Elizabeth’s hair back then, half a lifetime ago.

Elizabeth stepped closer. Now she could see that the doll wasn’t wearing underwear, and between the doll’s legs—how awful!—a sexual crease. Elizabeth shuddered. She couldn’t help remembering the doll she had as a child. Mimi. It wasn’t anything like this doll. Mimi was made of soft cloth, almost formless, but hers. One day at play, a neighbor girl told Elizabeth where babies came from. Elizabeth was sure that couldn’t be right, but that evening Elizabeth pressed Mimi to the place her friend had told her about. It felt strange. It felt sort of tingly. “What are you doing!” her mother yelled. Elizabeth jerked Mimi away. “That’s bad, bad, bad!” her mother ranted. “Don’t ever, ever do that again.” And she snatched Mimi from Elizabeth’s hands. “Never, never, never,” her mother repeated as she slammed the door closed. Elizabeth never saw Mimi again.

Elizabeth knew that this doll, this teenage replica, wasn’t suitable for a baby shower, but she couldn’t help herself. She took the doll from the shelf. It wasn’t heavy. It wasn’t light. Its weight felt just right. Elizabeth looked into the doll’s eyes. “You’re a little beauty, aren’t you?” Elizabeth said. Could it be that the doll smiled? Something about the smile, something about the look in the doll’s eyes, made Elizabeth tremble. For a moment she feared she might drop the doll. She hastened to improve her grip, and in doing so, her forefinger slipped right into the doll’s sex. It was warm. And slippery. And snug. And getting snugger. And suddenly there was a squeeze, and Elizabeth felt the squeeze not just on her finger but in her own sex. She tried to pull her finger out, but the doll’s sex held fast, squeezing again and again, and Elizabeth’s sex mimicked each contraction. A moment later the pleasure became overwhelming, like nothing Elizabeth had ever experienced before, a pleasure so profound, so powerful as to be all but unbearable.

When the sensations ebbed at last, Elizabeth shoved the doll back onto her shelf, grabbed the adjacent teddy bear, and hustled to the cashier at the front of the store. Almost in a trance, she wandered the parking garage for much of an hour before finding her car.

“What a darling bear,” one of the baby shower guests remarked. “Where did you get it?”

“Swanson’s,” Elizabeth managed to reply.

Another guest, one Elizabeth didn’t know, said, “I love that store. I was there just yesterday, and I found this delightful birthday present for my niece. She might be a little old for dolls, but look at Barbie—are we ever too old for dolls?” A discussion of the recent movie and some talk of favorite dolls from childhood followed. Rather than take part, Elizabeth helped clear the cake dishes.

The next evening, getting ready for bed, Elizabeth was brushing her teeth. Glancing in the mirror, she thought possibly the hairstyle of the doll in Children’s World might suit her, and then the expression of her reflection in the mirror, something about the smile, about the eyes, made her tremble, and then she felt it, a fullness in her vagina, the pulse, stronger and stronger, and she couldn’t help it. She came so hard.

During her lunch hour on Monday she visited Swanson’s again. The doll was gone. She thought about contacting the host of the recent baby shower. Maybe she could find out the name and address of the woman who’d bought a doll for her niece. But she didn’t call. Instead she resigned herself to the astonishing pleasures of an unbidden orgasm almost every beddy-bye time for several years thereafter.