It's what human beings do . . .

But poor, poor Cora. Now she's trying to cut off people's tongues. To infect them with parasites. Obstruct justice. She's stealing public property. Nobody's talking about misappropriation of office supplies: pens, staplers, copy paper.

It's Cora who orders the office supplies. She collects everyone's time card on Friday. She hands out the paychecks on Tuesday. Submits all the expense reports to Accounting for reimbursement. Answers the phone: “Child and Family Case Services.” She gets a cake and sends a card around the department when it's somebody's birthday. That's her job.

Nobody had a problem with Cora Reynolds before the little girl and boy arrived from Russia. Really, the problem was, Cora never sees a little kid, a freckle-faced, pigtailed little girl, unless somebody's fucked her.

Every rapscallion little boy, every scamp in bib overalls with a slingshot stuck in his back pocket, Cora's only meeting him because he's been forced to suck cock. Every kid's gap-toothed smile, here it's a mask. Every grass-stained knee, a clue. Every bruise, an indicator. Every wink or squeal or giggle, there's a blank to check for it on the victim-intake form. It's Cora's job, keeping track of those interview forms. Keeping track of the kids, each case file, any ongoing investigation. Until what happened, Cora Reynolds was the best office manager ever.

Still, what happens here is just damage control. You can't unfuck a kid. Once you bang a kid, there's no getting that genii out of the bottle. That kid's pretty much wrecked for good.

No, most kids come in here quiet. Stretch-marked. Already middle-aged. Not smiling.

Kids come here, and the first step is the evaluation interview with an anatomically detailed doll. This is different from an anatomically correct doll, but plenty of folks get them confused. Cora did. Got them confused.

Your typical anatomically detailed doll is made of cloth, sewn like a stuffed animal. It has strands of yarn for hair. The big difference between it and Raggedy Ann is the details: A floppy stuffed penis and balls. Or a lacy cloth vagina. A drawstring pulled tight in back to make a puckered anus. Two buttons sewn to the chest for nipples. These dolls are something the intake kids can use to play-act. To demonstrate what Mommy or Daddy or Mommy's new boyfriend did.

The kids stick their fingers in the dolls. Drag the dolls by their yarn hair. Hold the dolls by the neck and shake them until their stuffed heads flop. They hit and lick and bite and suck the dolls, and it's Cora's job to sew the nipples back on. Cora will find two new marbles when the little felt scrotum gets yanked too hard.

Everything done to the kids gets done to those dolls.

Nobody just stumbles into this line of work.

Threads come loose from too many molested children molesting the dolls. Too many diddled little boys suck that same pink felt penis. Too many little girls have forced a finger, two fingers, three fingers into that same satin-lined vagina. Ripping it at the top and bottom. Little hernias of cotton batting were bulging out. Under their clothes, the dolls were smudged and dirty. Sticky and smelling bad. The fabric was rubbed into pills and snagged with scars where threads were gone.

This little rag doll girl and boy the whole world gets to abuse.

And of course, Cora did what she could to keep them clean. She stitched them back together. But one day she went on the Internet to find another pair. A new pair.

Somewhere were women who made their career stitching tiny pocket-shaped vaginas or coin-purse scrotums. These kids, the women dressed in flowered calico dresses and bib overalls. But this time, Cora wanted something durable. She got on the Internet. She ordered a new pair, from some maker she'd never heard about before. This time, she confused anatomically detailed with correct.

Anatomically correct, she asked for, boy and girl dolls. Lowest price possible. Durable. Easy to clean.

A search engine offered her two dolls. Made in the former Soviet Union. With flexible arms and legs. Anatomically correct. Because these were the lowest-priced, and because that was the county purchasing policy, she placed the order.

Later, nobody ever asked why she ordered those dolls. When the box arrived, brown cardboard and big as a four-drawer file cabinet, when the delivery guy wheeled it up on a cart and left it next to her desk, when he made her sign his clipboard, then it was Cora first figured this might be a mistake.

The moment they opened the box, when they saw what was inside, it was too late.

It was Cora and a county detective, pulling the metal staples and then digging through the mats of bubble wrap, digging until they found a foot. A pink child's foot, five perfect toes poking up, out of the Styrofoam pellets and bubble wrap.

The detective wiggled one of the toes. He looked at Cora.

“These were the cheapest,” Cora said. She said, “You don't get a lot of choice.”

The foot was pink rubber, finished with clear, hard toenails. The skin smooth, without a freckle or mole or vein. At this, the detective put a hand around the ankle and lifted it to show a smooth pink knee. Then a pink thigh. Then a shower of white packing peanuts. Bubble wrap popping and falling away. And a naked pink little girl hung from the detective's fist near the ceiling. Her blond hair fell in curls, brushing the floor. Her bare arms hung down at either side of her head. Her mouth hung open, a silent gasp, showing white teeth small as pearls, and the smooth pink roof of her mouth. A little girl the age for Easter-egg hunts and First Communion and Santa's lap.

With one ankle in the detective's hand, the girl's other leg sagged, bent at the knee. Between her legs, spread there, not just anatomically correct but . . . perfect, was the girl's pink vagina. The darker pink lips of it, curving inside.

Still in the box, looking up at her, looking up at them all, was a naked little boy.

A printed brochure fluttered to the floor.

Then Cora's arms were around the girl, hugging her pillow softness, clutching for a sheet of wrapping paper to put around the little body.

The detective smiled, shaking his head, squeezing his eyes shut, and saying, “Great job at procurement, Cora.”

Cora held the girl, one hand cupped to hide the pink buttocks. One hand cupped to hold the blond head to Cora's chest, and she said, “This is a mistake.”

The brochure said the dolls were soft molded silicone, the kind used for breast implants. They could be left under an electric blanket and would hold the heat for hours of pleasure. Their skin covered a skeleton of fiberglass with steel joints. Their hair was inserted, strand by strand, planted into the skin of their scalp. They had no pubic hair. The male doll had an optional foreskin that you could roll onto the head of its penis. The girl doll had a replaceable plastic hymen you could send away for. Both dolls, the brochure said, had deep tight throats and rectums, for vigorous oral or anal entry.

The silicone had a memory and would return to its original shape, no matter what you did. Their nipples could be tugged to five times their original length without tearing. The labia, scrotums, rectums could be stretched to accommodate almost any desire. The dolls, the brochure said, could take years of violent, strenuous enjoyment.

For clean-up, you just used soap and water.

Leaving the dolls in direct sunlight might fade their eyes and lips, the brochure said in French, Spanish, English, Italian, and what looked like Chinese.

The silicone was guaranteed odorless and tasteless.

At lunch, Cora went out to buy a little dress and a little pair of pants and shirt. When she got back to her desk, the box was empty. Styrofoam peanuts and bubble wrap popped under her every step. The dolls were gone.