Page 30 of Serial Killer Games

Grant lunges desperately for Dolly’s interest. He wants to get things back on track. “I—I don’t like sex,” he tries. “At all. A sexual connection feels cheap, but that’s what all of these women want. Sex. Sex-sex-sex. What I want is the connection ofmindandsoul. I want a soulmate, I want myperson, and I want to be someone else’s person.” What he wants is to sound poetic and romantic, but nothing piques Dolly’s interest. He frowns at her apathy, then bites the ring, yanks, and throws his grenade.

“So I spend about a hundred thousand dollars a year purchasing silicone dolls instead.”

He waits for it to explode, but of course Dolly doesn’t evenflinch. She uncoils her legs and sits up straight, and Grant is finally happy: she’s interested in him.

“Is it because you want to be in control?” Dolly asks with thinly veiled excitement. “You want them to stay here in your apartment and never leave? You want to pick their names, and their clothes?”

Grant blinks. “No.”

“You like that they don’t have personalities and opinions, and families and friends?”

Grant frowns. “No.”

Dolly deflates infinitesimally. “So what’s the appeal of dolls?”

Grant blinks again. “I feel less lonely with one around.”

“Why?”

“Because…I feel less misunderstood. I don’t need to feel understood, but at least notmisunderstood.”

Surprise, but then Dolly’s face settles into a cool, professional expression. She swirls her wineglass thoughtfully. “So where is the problem, Grant?”

Grant stares at her mutely. “What?”

“You’ve told me that you can’t get your needs met by real, live women, and that you’ve figured out a work-around. Where is the problem?”

Grant has no answer.

“Here’s my professional opinion: you don’t need to fix anything. You’ve found a way to be happy without making anyone else unhappy. Do you know how rare that is?”

“But—”

Dolly shakes her head. “Connecting with another human being is difficult. Other people make it look easy, maybe, but some of us…some of us are like those endangered mountain cats, who have to live thinly spread out over vast tracts of landin order to survive, and only encounter another of our species rarely and fleetingly.”

Dolly glances at me, her eyes glinting like those of a rangy mountain predator, and maybe she doesn’t see a giant flashing sign above my head. She spots a fellow prowler in the distance, just as hungry and starved for company as she.

“I think someday you’ll meet her, Grant. We all do, eventually.” She gets to her feet and stalks over to me, holding my gaze, and I feel warm.

We all do, eventually.Suck a dick, Grant.

“Thank you for the wine, but Jake and I have to go now.”

“What? Where?”

“We have to drop off some Christmas presents,” I say, and Dolores smiles for me. “There’s a toy drive at the Children’s Hospital.”

“Oh.” Grant frowns.

I grab the sacks of wrapped presents by the door, and Dolores puts on her black trench coat and slips out of Grant’s life forever, while he stares after her, his heart ripped from his chest.

—

We don’t go to theChildren’s Hospital. We deposit a foot on the doorstep of a podiatrist’s office. A hand at the YMCA. Dolores clutches her phone in front of her and barks directions at me. I pull up, and she darts out, barefoot, and runs to deposit a gift, and runs back again, over and over and over. Close to one in the morning, she makes me drive left, and left, then right, and we pull up in front of a squat, boring apartment building sprouting from the ground amidst ranks of similar squat, boring apartment buildings.

“Who lives here?”

“I do,” she says.

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