Chapter 2: Secrets

When they reached the door where Steve had emerged a few minutes earlier, he opened it and gestured for her to enter. At first, it looked like a typical office, with a desk in the center, some boxes containing what she figured were items waiting to be put on the store shelves, a couple of file cabinets, and an empty folding table.

Sandy turned and looked at the wall to her right. Much to her amazement, what she saw were two life-sized nude figures of women with the same strange body type as Barbie dolls she used to play with - exaggeratedly large breasts and a very narrow waist. One looked a lot like a Barbie doll, blonde, long-limbed, with a vacant stare. That, Sandy realized, was because her mouth was molded into a permanent ‘OH!’ of surprise, a perfect shape for a man to ... well, she stopped trying to imagine the rest then. She knew enough about oral sex to understand what that opening might be used for.

The other doll was shorter, with jet-black hair, bangs, and slanted eyes. She looked like one of the characters from the anime cartoons Brad liked. Both of them gave Sandy the creeps, with their vacant stare. “Guys actually buy those?” she asked.

He laughed. “And that’s not all. Depending on their fantasy, they can buy different clothes and wigs to dress them up. Some of my customers spend a lot on these ... girlfriends. And they’re flexible. Watch,” he picked the blonde doll up and put it on the table. He spread the doll’s legs apart and bent ‘her’ knees so that “she” was totally exposed.

Sandy could see what she now recognized as an artificial vagina. Along with the round ‘mouth’ opening, it didn’t take her long to figure out what the dolls would be used for. “Geez, you must get some strange customers in here. Single guys, I’m guessing,” she said.

“I don’t ask,” he replied, “but you’re probably right. As long as they have the money, what happens after Melinda and Kim leave the store is none of my business.”

“This is like Alice in Wonderland for adults,” she giggled.

Steve put the doll back against the wall. “That’s not really what I wanted to show you.” He walked over to his desk, opened one of the drawers, and took out a couple of what looked like photo albums, the kind her mom had filled with pictures of Sandy when she was little. “Come take a look,” he said.

She stood beside him as he started slowly leafing through one of the albums. The girls in the pictures were young, Sandy’s age and even younger. Most of the girls were just modeling for the camera, but some photos showed the same acts she had seen in the magazines on the store shelves. “Oh,” she said, “isn’t that stuff ... illegal?”

“That’s why I keep them hidden away. This is my personal collection.”

She wondered why Steve was so willing to show her around and share some of his secrets. Was he enjoying showing her those strange pictures, maybe watching to see her reaction? But why? Some of the mystery was resolved when he opened the other album and started leafing through the pages.

Sandy watched quietly until finally, she saw one picture that made her exclaim, “Geez! I know her. That Marjorie Jenson. She went to my school. I think she graduated last year.”

“Her model name is MJ,” Steve told her.

“How did you get her pictures? Where do you get all these?”

“I bought the ones in the first album I showed you from dealers in other countries. The ones in this album I took myself.”

“You’re a photographer?”

“It’s a hobby.”

“So, all the girls in that second album are local?”

“Not all,” he told her, “but most.”

Sandy’s head was spinning. “Why did Marjorie, or any of these girls want to model for you? Aren’t they afraid someone they know might see them, like me? Or are these just for you to see?”

Steve smiled. “The same reason girls want to pose nude for Playboy or Penthouse, money. And the odds of them being seen by someone they know are almost zero. I sell as many as I can, but not locally. Most of my customers are in Europe or Asia, a few in South America.”