As he wandered the lobby looking at the display cases filled with Sidney memorabilia, including a hat and boot set that she had worn in at least one TV interview, a collection of stills displayed alongside to authenticate this, Josh noticed a number of girls arrive, either singly or in groups of two or more, usually dropped off by one or both parents but sometimes coming in on their own and heading through a door to the right of the entrance marked “Deliveries” with a larger-than-life stylised picture of Sidney leaning on the door-frame as if welcoming them in. Clearly this door led to the kitchens, or at least to some waiting area where girls could undress and await the call. One thing that struck him about all the girls he saw going through this door, ranging in age from no more than seven up to fourteen or fifteen, girls that he knew would never leave the building alive, was how happy and excited they all seemed. Clearly Samantha, Amelia and Emily were no anomalies! Since it was very cold outside, he was not surprised to see most of the girls arriving in casual cloths like tracksuits but there were one or two who definitely looked as if they had nothing on under their coats and there was one pair of sisters, aged around eleven and fourteen, who arrived in bikinis which they took off and handed to their parents before strutting proudly naked through the doors that led to their delicious doom!

Starting to feel like he would seem like a voyeur if he stayed much longer, Josh collected his bags of shopping and reiterated to the young woman behind the desk that he would be just outside if needed. She assured him that she would call if there were any problems then turned to greet the next set of diners who has just walked in, a young couple this time clearly on a date.

Meanwhile, the three girls followed the young man in the pink polo-shirt past a waving animatronic of Sidney herself which was surprisingly lifelike to the extent that they first took it to be a young model hired to welcome guests, the illusion broken upon further inspection by the slightly jerky, repetitive movements, and through a marble archway flanked by Roman-esque statues of young teenagers posed elegantly but with lines depicting meat-cuts carved into their white stone bodies. The other side of the Sidney animatronic was an ornamental fountain, also in white marble, with a polished bronze statue of Sidney in the middle, posed on one leg with her arms out to the side and playfully spouting water from her mouth.

Inside, the room was dominated by a bronze statue of Sidney that had to be twenty feet tall, holding a platter on which a life-size version of herself was being served like a suckling pig, complete with apple in her mouth, and surrounded at the base of the revolving platform by naked bronze girls of various ages, holding hands with each other as they looked up at her in awe. There was a stage, although they knew not to expect any live entertainment that night, the back of which was a large screen which presumably provided scenery for the dancers but which was now showing a snowy, pine forest with pointy-eared girls in long stripy socks, pointy shoes. Hats and scarves but otherwise naked, glitter on their cheeks, rumps and tummies, were wandering in and out of frame, throwing snowballs at each other or playing hide-and-seek among the trees, clearly meant to be Christmas elves.

It looked as if they were having lots of fun and Samantha wondered who they were, concluding that they were probably one of the dance troupes from a branch in the far North of America where such a scene could easily be filmed with the footage distributed to Sidney’s restaurants around the world.

Next to the stage was the public cooking area where they could see a girl just a little older than themselves, her skin already a crisp golden brown and looking ready to carve, slowly turning on a spit while through the glass door of the oven, a meaty rump could be spied with a carrot sticking out of it. There was also a pot but this seemed unoccupied for the moment, the stew inside gently steaming.

Against the wall which connected to the lobby, backing onto the fountain and likely circulating the same water, was a much larger water feature more like an enclosure at a zoo. The front was clear glass so that anything that took place under the water could also be seen, a polished bronze railing along the top which a pair of smaller girls dressed in cute party clothes were currently leaning on and at the back was a formation of which marble cut to look like craggy rocks and on these rocks, three colourful mermaids were sitting, one with a red tail and hair to match, one lime green and the other purple! They were topless of course but unlike traditional mermaids who transitioned to fish just above the waist, these tails were designed to leave the rumps and vulvae of the girls wearing them on full display. The smaller girls, presumably taking these magical creatures at face value, were engaged in a deep and enraptured conversation with the aquatic performers. As Samantha and her friends watched, the purple mermaid slipped down from her rock and swam elegantly back and forth behind the glass wall, showing off her pretty tail to the delighted youngsters.


To be continued...