We always think we know who our friends are. Hell, I’d known my best friend Martin for the better part of two decades. After what I saw today, however, I realized that I never knew who he really was, and what he’s capable of.
I began working for his company about a year ago. I was a university dropout who was scraping by as a freelancer, hoping to make it big one day, but none of the things I did ever took off. At age thirty, still stuck in the same shitty one-room apartment, I knew things had to change.
One night, when I was out with Martin, after half a dozen beers, I lamented about my situation. Once I was done, he leaned back and told me a few things himself. Things hadn’t been easy for him either, and after his parents had retired, he was forced to take over the family business. He’d restructured it from scratch, and things were finally looking better. Soon he’d be able to make some real money, but for that, he’d need a few helping hands. I looked up when I heard this, not sure what to say. He was selling canned soup at farmer’s markets and fairs. The fancy kind, sure, but was that what I wanted to do? Then I thought about my situation, and I had to admit, there was no way I could refuse his offer.
Things went pretty well. Stable pay meant I didn’t have to worry about rent anymore, and after I’d proved myself over the course of the first few months, Martin put me in charge of our logistics. It was nothing fancy. I took care of our small warehouse, the monthly trips to our supplier, and handled the occasional delivery, or business deals, as Martin called them. While most of our customers bought directly from our market stall, others ordered our product in bulk. As a sign of goodwill and gratitude, we offered to deliver the product in person. Sometimes it meant a slight detour after the market had ended. At others, the customer would arrive right at the market stall. It was business as usual, and I thought nothing about it.
That’s until today.
Martin had sent me a message instructing me to handle another one of his business deals. The customer would come to pick it up in the late afternoon, around the time the market ended. Attached to the message was an image of a cardboard box standing in the middle of the warehouse.
In the morning, I put the box in the van, and secured it between the parts of our market stall. The market was pretty much dead; only a handful of other traders attended it, and few people arrived to buy any product. I had no idea why Martin had sent me here. There was no way we’d turn a profit. Hell, we’d lose money considering the price of gas these days.
The hours passed slowly, but eventually dusk arrived, and the market ended. I was about to pack up when an expensive-looking station wagon came right to the stop behind my market stall. A well-kept older man stepped outside. He had an aura of self-importance about himself, and his outfit must’ve cost more than I made in a month. He scanned the area for a moment before he hurried toward me. As he approached me, his eyes darted around nervously, and he grew more uneasy with each step.
I watched the man curiously. He wasn’t the first weird customer I’d met; Martin always said such things came with the territory. Rural areas in the middle of nowhere were prone to characters such as this.
“Hey there, can I help you?” I asked in the friendliest voice I could muster.
The man’s expression changed to one of disdain, and I could instantly tell he looked down on me.
“I’m here for the delivery,” he said condescendingly.
“Ah, the box! It’s in the back of the van. Quite the order you got there. Stocking up for the holidays?” I asked, in a jolly manner.
The man said nothing and continued to stare me down. While his eyes rested on me, I shuffled around awkwardly before I led him to the market van. When I opened it, and he saw the cardboard box, his expression changed. His eyes grew wide, and a hungry grin appeared on his face. Martin was right, you met the weirdest characters out here. All this over a few cans of soup?
“All right, let me get it.”
With that, I reached out for the box, but saw a corner had been torn open during transportation. Some of the packaging peanuts had already spilled from the hole.
“Shit, I think the box was damaged during the trip. Let me check if everything-“
“That’s no problem,” the man said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure everything’s all right.”
“You sure?” I asked, squirming under the grip of his hand.
“Just carry it over to the car, please.”
He smiled at me, but there was no hint of emotion in it. I nodded, freed myself from his hand, and dragged the box from the van. The man was already at his car, trunk open, waiting for me. With every second, his face changed, and I watched as an annoyed, almost angry expression replaced the smile. Every once in a while, his eyes would dart around, and his hand was tapping against the side of the car as if to urge me to get a move on. I did precisely that. The guy was creeping me out, and by now, I wanted nothing more than to get this entire thing over with. Then the box began slipping from my hands. My steps sped up, and I barely made it to the car before I lost my grip, and it tumbled into the trunk. As it did, the already damaged side of the box tore open. An audible gasp escaped from the man next to me.
“Oh shit, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-“
My voice trailed off. Instead of cans of soup, something else spilled from the box. At first, I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Between the mass of packaging peanuts, I saw something white. It was a small white hand that dangled from the box. What the hell?
Before I could even say a word, or ask what was going on, the man threw the drunk shut. I jerked at the sudden loud noise and focused on the man again. Neither of us said a word, and for a few seconds, we just stared at each other in silence. I was bewildered by what I’d just seen, while his face showed a mixture of fear and anger. I was afraid he’d jump me, but then he just pushed himself past me, jumped into his car, and without another word, drove off.
During the long trip back to the warehouse, I tried to convince myself that my eyes had played a trick on me. There was no way what I’d seen was real. It had been a long day, and that guy had been creepy as hell, so my mind had probably conjured up the image. I shook my head, then began laughing out loud, to convince myself how ridiculous the idea was, but even to my own ears it sounded fake and hollow. I’d turned the heater in the car to the max, but even though I felt cold, and shivered in my seat.
The moment I reached the warehouse, I saw Martin already waiting for me. I almost drove right past it, but his face was as friendly as usual.
“Hey man,” he greeted me when I stepped out of the car. “I was just checking on a few things, so I thought I might help you unload everything. How did the market go? Any good?”
“Nah, it was pretty shit. No customers at all.”
“Well, can’t be helped. How did the… business deal go? Did the guy pick up his delivery?”
“Yeah, everything went well,” I blurted out, almost a bit too fast.
A hint of suspicion showed on his face, but it was gone in an instant.
As we unloaded the van, we talked and joked as usual, but the atmosphere was different, tense even. Something unspoken hung heavy in the air, and every once in a while, I found Martin’s eyes linger on me for a tad bit too long. Neither of us said a word about the packaging peanuts scattered in the back of the van. Instead, we unloaded the parts of the market stall and re-shelved the unsold cans of soup. Once we were done, I gathered my things and was about to head to the nearby bus station.
“Hey man, why the rush? Let’s have a drink!” Martin offered.
I was about to decline and get the hell out of there, but a small voice in the back of my head told me that wouldn’t fly tonight.
“Sure, why not,” I answered in as calm a voice as I could muster.
Whit that, we drove to the nearby grocery store, got ourselves a beer each, and settled back in his car. While I stared at the bottle in my hand, Martin took a big sip of beer before he sighed.
“Sorry man,” he finally said.
“What do you-” I started, but when he looked at me, I knew this was about the box.
“You know, I haven’t been quite honest with you. Things haven’t been going well at all. It’s all about online stores nowadays, and most people don’t even go to the weekly markets anymore.”
I nodded.
“After I took over the company, I barely made any money. With Julie and the kids at home, it just isn’t enough.”
Once more, I nodded, trying my hardest to keep the anxiety at bay.
“There was no way I could tell Julie how bad things really were. We’d just bought the new house, and now I couldn’t even pay the freaking mortgage. I was looking for some serious trouble, so I did some research, went to a few trade shows, and talked to some of dad’s old contacts. Eventually, I stumbled upon a few, well, alternate products.”
“And you decided to sell them on the side, right?”
“Yeah.”
We both were quiet for a long while, drinking our beers in silence.
“Never imagined I’d be selling something like that. Freaking sex dolls.”
“Sex dolls?” I blurted out, instantly regretting it.
Martin, however, sighed, before he explained. He’d gotten in contact with someone from Eastern Europe, Slovakia. It was a company that specialized in anatomically correct sex dolls. They were perfect down to the tiniest detail: smooth soft skin, real hair, the whole deal.
“It’s disgusting how close they are to the real deal, but there are people out there looking for just that.”
I took another sip of my beer.
“You’re telling me there was a sex doll inside that box? Isn’t it way too small for that?”
Martin’s face turned dark.
“Well, they make them in all sizes, you know? There are people out there who are willing to pay quite a bit extra for… that.”
I knew what he was implying. Once more, I looked over at Martin. I thought I knew him, and yet… Then I imagined him going home to his wife, tugging his kids into bed, and I felt sick to my stomach.
“Well, I guess it’s time for me to-“
“Hey, sorry again. I should’ve told you about this whole damned thing right from the start. I know it’s sick. Fuck, it’s disgusting, but we’ve all got bills to pay, you know?”
His eyes rested on me, and he was looking at me pleadingly, almost waiting for me to say something, to ask an unsaid question, but then I noticed something else in his eyes, something darker, more sinister.
“Guess you’re right,” I blurted. “I have to go, though. Got almost another hour on the bus before I’m home.”
“Yeah, sure, night man.”
I gave him a nod, exited the car, and made my way to the bus station. With each step, I could feel Martin’s eyes digging into my back. I forced myself to walk as normally and calmly as I could, yet before long, I felt my steps speeding up. I’d waited for his car to drive off, for him to leave, but I heard nothing, and I knew he was still watching me.
When the bus finally arrived, I nearly leaped inside. I was anxious, scared, and had to clutch the seat in front of me to keep my hands from trembling. I should’ve been calm. Martin had explained everything, after all. It was messed up, sure, and probably illegal, but they were just dolls, right? He was my best friend, and I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe him so badly. Yet there was one thing that kept coming to my mind: the image of what I had seen just before the man had thrown the trunk shut.
That small hand, those tiny fingers… if it was nothing but a doll, why the hell had they moved?
