Sydney’s trip to Amsterdam was exactly what she wanted it to be; a little alone time to wander around a new city, relax, and let loose for a few days. She biked everywhere, enjoyed the cafes, met some locals in Vondelpark, and saw as many Van Goghs as she could. All up and down the canals, flowers were blooming beneath rows of ornate, narrow houses.
Of course, she also devoted plenty of time to a wide-eyed exploration of the red light district, eager to engage an intense curiosity with the comfortable anonymity of a foreign traveler.
In particular, Sydney spent a fair amount of time exploring a small sex shop halfway down a narrow alleyway that looked rather mysterious, like something out of a movie. In the front of the store she found the expected array of merchandise: lingerie, plugs, harnesses, instructional books and DVDs, a wide variety of dildos and vibrators, cock rings, edible panties, lube, massage oils, and a host of other things that she allowed herself to relish in the sheer scandal of. However, what interested her the most was a section toward the back of the store simply labeled, “Curios.”
In this section of the store, Sydney found herself surrounded by an assortment of vintage fetish objects, x-rated antiques, and archaic examples of early pornography. She found herself drawn to a large wooden box with a tarnished iron crank and a peephole. Sydney looked inside and began to turn the crank, discovering a primitive black and white movie that played on a loop.
It featured a young woman being pursued by a man, who turned him away. The man looked heartbroken, then had an idea, illustrating this fact with an upward pointed finger. In the next shot, he popped out from behind a curtain with his hands on his hips, completely nude and sporting a comically resplendent erection. The woman threw her arms up and appeared shocked.
“Where are your clothes?” a caption read. She gave a dramatic look downward before his erect penis filled the screen in closeup.
The woman laughed as the man chased her. Their garish makeup and erratic movements made the whole thing seem surreal and wildly antiquated. The woman was finally captured and her clothes flew off as if by some unseen force. She swooned like every actress of the silver screen seemed to do in those days. Moments later they were shown in bed, full of wanton excitement, her legs flung apart as the man swung his hips forward and back; their shockingly hairy bodies moving in a strange, exaggerated manner, almost like mechanical dolls.
The object, although outdated and somewhat creepy, seemed nevertheless fascinating to her, as did all the curios she discovered there. They revealed a world of desires and carnal lust stretching back for hundreds of years, deliciously disturbing the image of times she had always thought of as more innocent than modern days.
Sydney eventually approached a large glass case filled with a hodgepodge of erotic baubles. However, one in particular, arrested her full attention. In the center of the case stood a vertical dildo, as magnificent and extravagant in form as it was priced. Sydney found herself strangely aroused by its striking robustness and girth. She scrutinized the small details; a thick vein, the generous ridge of its cockhead, the plump, round balls resting at its base. As far as erect penises go, she found it perhaps the most sensationally crafted specimen she’d ever seen.
A gaunt, tattooed woman with intense eyes and wild black hair walked by. Sydney recognized her as the shop owner who briefly welcomed her when she entered.
“Excuse me, what’s this?” Sydney asked, mildly self-conscious about her display of interest.
“Oh!” the woman laughed. “I see that you’re feasting your eyes upon greatness. Literally.”
“Huh?”
“You happen to be admiring the cock belonging to Alexander the Great himself.”
“Seriously?!” Sydney replied, turning back to give it a second look, given this new knowledge. “Aren’t military commanders famously supposed to be… um… making up for certain shortcomings?”
The woman laughed. “Apparently he was no Napoleon! I purchased this copy from a collector in Berlin. He claimed to have received it as a gift from a friend working at the Kunstmuseum, which has the original.”
“How do you know if it’s real?”
“Well, the original phallus is a beautiful piece, carved from solid marble. I wasn’t previously aware of its existence but it seems there are historic references to its creation. It’s not available for public viewing. However, I was able to request a private viewing at the museum and determined that this is, in fact, an authentic reproduction. I believe the collector’s friend made exactly ten copies, so this piece is extremely rare.”
“Well that explains the price,” Sydney mused. “Is it… used?”
The woman laughed again. “Sadly, no. Not by me, at least. I would like to claim that I try out all our merchandise first, but… Alas, this copy may very well still be a virgin… much unlike its papa!” She wandered off, still chuckling to herself.
“So… you belonged to Alexander the Great, did you?” Sydney whispered to herself. She continued to gaze at the phallic object in wonder, thinking about the stories it might tell if it could only talk. She thought of the legendary man it once belonged to, having built one of the largest empires of the ancient world by the age of just thirty. She found herself even wondering what it would feel like inside her…
Sydney’s fascination over this object continued to take hold and grow throughout the remainder of that day. When she returned to the hostel it continued to linger in her mind, haunting her with the idea of using a custom-molded dildo from a real person; someone with a distinct history and a precise personality.
After waving goodbye to a perfectly friendly roommate from Prague the following morning, Sydney nevertheless expressed relief at having the room to herself. She guided her hand down to the top of her panties and slipped it inside. Sydney found herself wet and highly sensitive, the result of an expected lust fueled by visions of dildos fashioned from the bodies of all the desirable guys she knew. She quickly wrestled off her underwear and parted her hips.
As her head sunk back into the pillow she slipped a couple fingers inside, imagining one sturdy cock after the other, filling her from the inside and somehow communicating the individual characteristics of its owner. Matt’s from the gym was muscular and strong. Tyler, her coworker, had one that was crafty and full of playfulness. Giles, the bartender and British expat she’d met the previous night, possessed the manifestation of masculine refinement and polish. Suppose she owned reproductions from all their bodies, able to enjoy them at any time, without the pressure of a pesky relationship?
Sydney soon found herself using the pillow to muffle her screams, delighted as she was to climax at the birth of a wild new fantasy which she felt taking root deep within the erotic recesses of her mind.
However, like all the best fantasies, it held the seed of real possibilities.
***
The one thing that prevented Sydney’s long journey home from being a bittersweet one was the fact that she was about to meet with David to tell him all the details about her trip. Or, at least the ones she could share openly…
Sydney and David had grown up together since they were born. Their families were friends due to the fact that their mothers were college roommates. As Sydney and David had always been inseparable, the running joke in her family was that they would inevitably get married to each other one day and have lots of babies together. This joke caused Sydney a lot of embarrassment at an early age but privately she had always taken it as fact- and certainly not one that she disliked.
The reality was, David had always tugged at her heartstrings like no other guy ever had. As they grew older, they began to see themselves as best friends. They shared mutual interests, compared notes regularly on life experiences, and knew most of each other’s deepest secrets. Even when David had girlfriends, Sydney felt that she was somehow closer to him than they ever were.
It was, however, not easy. Despite her family’s prediction about their relationship, she never told David how she really felt, nor did he reveal any feelings to her beyond their deep friendship. In high school, when they turned eighteen together, she had imagined that they would consecrate the event by becoming adults together, doing certain things that only adults did. However, her persistent crush became the source of great sadness the day he acquired a date to the prom… and it was not her. He had asked Jessica Wilson and later she had reluctantly accepted the invitation of Brian Mulroney.
It wasn’t that Brian was a bad guy, or unattractive. Sydney and Brian lost their virginity together that night but she was cruelly aware that she lost it with the wrong person; the same Brian Mulroney who then went off to college and that she had spoken with exactly once since graduation. Later, crushingly, she found out that David had lost his virginity to Jessica that night. Sydney had exactly one chance for a dream to come true and she missed it.
Years later, this endless circling of their destiny continued.
“David! What’s up!?” Sydney exclaimed, finding him sitting at a high top at Martin’s Bar and Grill where they often liked to meet.
“Hey! There you are!” he replied, abandoning his seat to give her a warm hug.
“I have so much to tell you!” she laughed.
“I’ll bet! I’ve been thinking about you at work…” He chuckled. “Wishing that I could be off on an adventure, too.”
“Oh my god, it was so much fun. I wish I could move there and smoke pot and ride my bike all day.”
David laughed. “You mean like we did the weekend before you left?”
Sydney snorted. “I guess that’s true…”
She began to narrate the details of her trip, from start to finish. David listened intently, smiling happily and occasionally commenting on her experiences. She even dared to tell him about her trip through the red light district. Sydney felt that strange, tingly feeling she always got when risqué subjects came up around her best friend.
These were the same feelings that had haunted her relentlessly in the run-up to that fateful prom. At an age when her hormones were raging, she had felt guilty about how much time she spent masturbating to the thought of them spending casual time together in the nude, sunbathing in the backyard, skinny dipping, and other activities, endlessly evoking the possibilities of what his body might look like. This was the product of one of their favorite things to do together, enjoy his family’s backyard pool, something they did regularly in that summer after senior year.
At that age, her fantasies began to develop into full-on erotic scenarios. A recurring daydream involved David inviting her back to his room after swimming, something that he often did in reality, albeit innocently. Having sufficiently dried off, she imagined them sitting on his bed watching videos on his laptop, still in their swimsuits. She would notice something was gnawing at him and would ask if he wanted to talk. David would reluctantly admit that he was having trouble hanging out with her on his bed.
“You might be my best friend since childhood, but you’re really beautiful,” he would explain, awkwardly. She would blush and reassure him that she always thought he was good-looking too. Sydney would look down and realize his swimsuit was starting to tent. He would become embarrassed and try to hide it without her noticing.
She would show sympathy, saying with a degree of boldness that only existed in fantasy, “That’s okay, don’t be embarrassed. I understand.” He would sheepishly relax and allow it to reach a full erection beneath his clothes. They’d go back to watching videos but he would continue to shift about uncontrollably. Sydney would pause a video, look at him squarely in the eyes, and say, “Do you want to just take them off? I don’t mind, like, seeing you in that way, or anything.”
Her heart would start racing as she saw her best friend growing tense, nervous, and aroused. “Oh… okay…” he would mumble. Then he would become to slowly slide down his swimsuit. Sydney’s eyes would grow wide as his erection would spring free, bobbing stiffly in the air.
“You have a really nice penis…” she would say, gazing at it and wanting to offer him a compliment, overwhelmed with the feelings of anxious infatuation swirling inside her, but finding it difficult and awkward to talk about his body.
Sydney imagined their eyes would meet. They’d lean in toward each other, neither sure about the other’s reception to their actions until finally, they would kiss. In her fantasy, they would kiss not in a casual way, but like lovers. She would lower down toward his lap, reach for his sturdy and desperate manhood, and then guide her best friend’s erect penis into her mouth. As she offered him pleasure the way she had learned about from her friends, their passions would ignite. He would rush to pull off her bikini and they would quickly curl up together, cocooned in his soft sheets, their warm bodies snuggled closely, still mildly damp and lightly scented with chlorine.
She would feel David inserting his cock smoothly inside her body as they each found themselves lost in the other’s loving gaze. Soon she would feel his body moving desperately against hers, grasping excitedly at her spritely breasts with a mesmerized look on his face, much like her unwanted prom date had done. They would soon be laughing together, fueled by their mutual pleasure, each of them bewildered with excitement over the unexpected thrill of having sex together after so many years of secret yearning.
To this day, Sydney returned to this fantasy, making herself come faster and harder than any other fantasy she had. It became a frequent necessity, in fact, to relieve her during times of greatest need. It became her deepest secret. The one she could never share with him.
“Is something the matter?” David asked, finding Sydney briefly lost in his eyes at the conclusion of her travel stories.
“Oh! No, just hungry. What are you getting?”
David looked down at his menu. “Just the buffalo ones I think. Spicy, obviously.”
“I think I’ll get the jerk sauce today, actually,” Sydney replied.
They talked late into the evening over beers. She learned everything that had happened to him while she was away. Sydney felt herself relax into the comfortable, detached state that alcohol afforded her. She enjoyed the little bubble that formed around them as they talked. Nothing else needed to exist at that moment.
Gone was the reality where they were not together… Gone was the reality where David had a girlfriend.
***
Sydney slipped back into the daily grind as the last remnants of her lingering memories from Amsterdam began to recede into the background of her consciousness. The one thing that persisted in bubbling up, however, was that fantasy she had about the dildo. She dwelt on how the task of taking a cast from a real man’s body would be such an erotic encounter and how that experience could be made to last in the form of the object that was produced, as it somehow represented the person it was modeled after.
This fantasy recurred in her head over and over, sometimes at unexpected times; at the grocery store, in the middle of a concert, while laying on the couch watching a cooking show. It haunted her until she finally relented, realizing that it would not be resolved until she played along- until she gave in and engaged it somehow.
Sydney took a sculpture class on the weekends, learning how to mold objects herself. She took a keen interest in using silicone, although she aimed to keep secret her reasons for expressing an interest in this material. The teacher obliged and gave her the relevant know-how. At first, the class was merely a superficial means to give life to the fantasy in her head, allowing her to fully imagine what the process would be like to make a custom dildo out of a man’s fully-erect penis. However, upon learning that the process was rather straightforward and came natural to her, she began to suppose it could be a real hobby.
What if, she wondered, it became an actual business venture? It wasn’t such a far-fetched idea, she ultimately reasoned.
Her private fantasy was now firmly in the driver’s seat, and she, merely along for the ride. It wasn’t long before Sydney rented a small studio space downtown where numerous decrepit vacancies made for many inexpensive opportunities. Setting no expectations whatsoever, she tried it out, unsure and uneasy about what might come of the experiment. Too embarrassed to advertise, she relied solely on walk-ins amused by a sign placed outside. Her visitors were mostly groups of young men who came in to ask lots of lewd questions and laugh. None took it seriously and all of them soon walked out in hysterics, joking about what it would be like to have their cocks cast and molded into a sex toy.
That is, until one day a man finally took her seriously and gave it a try.
He was shy, nervous, and quite possibly in it for a cheap sexual thrill. Still, she did her best to act professionally. She led him into the back and asked him to undress from the waist down. The process was painfully awkward. In consideration of her client, she left the room after asking him to make himself erect, then returned to find him holding his erection and breathing rapidly. She approached this deer-in-headlights, finding his growing anxiety a threat to maintaining his state of arousal, and had to ask him to stroke himself a few times, making them both further uncomfortable.
She had worked quickly, clumsily applying the materials involved in the process and doing a half-assed job borne out of sheer anxiety and distraction. Only on the following day was Sydney finally able to suppress her cringing and look upon that experience in a way that permitted any amount of erotic enjoyment about seeing a stranger’s arousal.
It gave her a strange power. There she had been seated, literally holding this man’s erotic destiny in the palms of her hands. She had possessed his sexuality. Taken control of it. Fashioned it into something else in service of her own whims and the whims of other women.
Sydney wised up overnight and hired an assistant; a petite, bubbly Latina named Jacinta who was full of enthusiasm and showered Sydney with praise over how bold and entrepreneurial she was for daring to start such a business. Together they put their heads together and sorted out a new system with greater efficiency and designed around the comfort of their customers. They gave their product a humorous name: Replicocks, and advertised them as “fine, lifelike dildos molded from the bodies of real men.” In addition to the whimsical name, the new look, fabrication experience, and beautiful packaging finally made the business feel like a professional boutique rather than a joke.
From the very first day after the retooling, it was a complete transformation. Business immediately began to pick up. Replicocks were mentioned on a local morning radio show. Men began to amble in, as nervous as before but were quickly reassured by the spa-like atmosphere. Erotic but highly tasteful prints hung on the wall; black and white abstract close-ups depicting sensual landscapes of naked flesh. Underneath were a series of rectangular boxes with little bows and an information tag, the product of an intense reworking of the packaging used to deliver the finished product. A small leather couch ran along one side of the room behind a coffee table containing a thin but slickly designed catalog of dildos available for purchase which, admittedly, was cobbled together from the very few customers Sydney had managed to acquire so far.