The Randy Romance Novelist (12 page)

“What are you thinking about over there?” Henry asked.

“Nothing,” I lied.

Knowing me too well, he stopped our walk and made me face him. “There is a crinkle between your eyes; you’re worrying about something. What is it? And don’t lie to me, or else I will make you go in one of the jiz booths at the adult store.”

“Jiz booths?” I asked. “What are those?”

“Don’t try to change the subject. What’s going on, love?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Sometimes it just seems too good to be true. You’re too good to be true. I’m waiting for something to happen. For someone to come along and steal you away from me.”

Henry lifted my chin so I had to look directly into his sweet and caring eyes. “Are you insane?” He laughed and then pulled me into a hug. “Rosie, you’re everything to me, fucking everything. We are meant to be together. I promise you that. Now stop having crazy thoughts; you’re stuck with me, love. Whether you like it or not. Got it?”

“Yeah,” I answered, feeling all gooey on the inside.

“Let’s get going. I’m starving, and we still have to go shopping for penis paraphernalia. Do you even know what you’re getting?”

We continued our walk down the sidewalk, passing honking taxis, people on their cell phones, and cute shops that I made mental notes to take a look at later. “Not really. I have my checklist. I guess I’m just supposed to get anything with a penis on it. Should be a good time.”

“Yeah, real good time,” Henry said sarcastically.

Penis Emporium

ROSIE

It smelled weird, like really weird. Like rotten cheese on a recently washed down sidewalk kind of weird.

When we first walked into the sex shop, I was a little excited to see what might be in stock, given my newfound enjoyment of the male form, but the minute I sniffed in the musty, humid air of the place, I wanted to leave immediately.

“Why does it smell like that?” I asked, burying my face into Henry’s side to soak in his cologne.

“Latex, plastic, and jiz, what did you expect?”

“Ew, that is not what I’m smelling right now.” I looked around and leaned into Henry some more, so the shop owner didn’t hear me. “It does not smell like semen in here.”

Henry pointed to a black curtain off to the side. “Remember the jiz booths I talked about?” I nodded. “Back there, love.”

“How do you know this?” I gasped. “Oh, my God, have you been in one before? Ew, Henry, getting it off in public is so beneath you.”

A full-on belly laugh took over Henry’s body, and I couldn’t help but watch his Adam’s apple fall in rhythm with his laughter. The way his shoulders shook and flexed under his simple white button up caused a warm sensation to take place within my stomach. I wanted him . . . again . . . in a sex shop.

“Rosie, you think so highly of me.” He shook his head. “I have been in one.”

Check that, I didn’t want him anymore.

“Gross, Henry!”

“Not because I wanted to,” he added quickly. “I was with a couple of friends and they dared me to go in one, sit down, and watch a video.”

“Why would you do that? Did you touch yourself?”

“No,” he chuckled. “I didn’t touch myself. It smelled so much like soured spunk I nearly threw up, but once I got out, I was a cool one-hundred dollars richer. Joke was on them because they paid for my beer for a couple of days in college. It all worked out.”

“Except for the fact that you went into a porn booth.”

“Eh,” he passed it off. “Chalk it up to life experiences. Do you want to see what it looks like?”

“No,” I replied right away, disgusted with the suggestion.

I looked over at the curtain. Even though I didn’t want to go near one of the booths, I had to admit, I was mildly curious to see what it looked like.

Henry must have picked up on my curiosity, because after observing me for a few moments, he asked, “You want to see, don’t you?”

I bit my lip as I weighed my options. Research is an important thing when it comes to writing a book. As an author, you want to be accurate in your descriptions, you want to make sure anything you type out will make sense to the readers. Therefore, if I ever write about a porn booth, then I have to see one, right?

“I think maybe, for research, it might be beneficial just to see what one could possibly look like, but I swear, if you push me near it, I will break up with you so hard, you won’t be able to catch your breath before I snap your penis in half.”

“Whoa, don’t want a broken penis. I’ll keep my distance.”

Henry guided me to the velvet curtain that hid the booths. I took a deep breath, and allowed him to take my hand and propel me into the dimly lit space. I didn’t really know what to expect when I crossed the velvet curtain threshold but was shocked when I took in the surroundings. There was music playing in the background, cheap elevator music. The walls were black and the doors to the booths were red, all marked off by a number. Sex paraphernalia hung from the ceiling. Surrounding the walls and in the center of the floor were trash cans, lots and lots of trash cans.

“What is with the garbage cans?” I whispered to Henry, hearing a random grunt here and there. They really needed to turn up the elevator music a little bit more in this joint.

Henry quirked his eyebrow at me. “What do you think they are for?”

“Umm . . . no food or drinks in the booth?”

Henry shook his head, then made a motion near his crotch, as if he was jacking himself off and then spooged everywhere. “Cum has to go somewhere, love.”

Oh. My. God!

“Ewwww!” I said rather loudly. Henry shushed me, and motioned with his hand.

Henry was about to say something to me when one of the booth doors opened. A very attractive middle-aged man poked his head out and stared us down.

“Do you mind? I’m trying to whack off before I have to go home to five kids, four of them being two sets of twins.”

Waving his hand at the man in an apologetic way, Henry said, “Sorry, man. We’ll be quiet, pump away.”

“Thanks, dude.” The man shut the door, and from what I could assume, started to get back to business.

“I can’t handle this right now.” I snickered and Henry covered my mouth.

“Don’t be rude. People are trying to get off. They have the right to do so. Now, do you want to see a booth or not? Because if you’re not going to look in one, then I’m getting the hell out of here. That dildo over there is dangling pretty low from the ceiling and it looks like it’s waving at me.”

I eyed the dildo and nearly squeaked out a scream. The head was the size of my fist . . . my fist!

“Fine, which one is open?”

Henry pointed to the last booth on the right. “That one says vacant. Stick your head in and let’s get out of here.”

“Will you still love me if I look inside?”

“Yes, but if you don’t hurry up and that dildo falls on me, there’s a slight chance I might not love you after that.”

“Fair enough,” I laughed. “Concussion from elephant dong might not be the way to go.”

“Just get in there,” he gently pushed me in the direction of the empty booth.

“Hey!” I placed my hands on my hips. “What did I tell you about pushing? I’m not afraid to snap your pecker in half.”

He gave me a “get real” look. “Please, you would rather die than do anything to my precious junk.”

Very accurate statement, but I didn’t have to let him know that.

Ignoring his smarmy look, I grabbed a paper towel from one of the wall dispensers, gripped the doorknob to the booth, and peeked in. Instantly, I was hit with a smell I couldn’t not even possibly describe if I wanted to.

Like fuel to a flame, my hand snapped up over my mouth and nose, covering them both. I turned to Henry and said, “It smells rank in here.”

“Did you expect it to smell like a spring meadow? Of course it smells bad.”

I grabbed my cardigan and covered my mouth and nose, so I’d have a little bit of a filter while breathing in. “How do people even get off in places like this? The smell is way too offensive.”

“When someone is horny enough, they don’t care where they are.”

“I’m never that . . . excited.”

“I beg to differ.” Henry wiggled his eyebrows.

I swatted his chest and then peeked my head in one more time. There was nothing fancy about the booth at all. On one side, there was a screen that seemed like it was from the 1980s with buttons to choose what flick to watch, and opposite the screen was a built in bench, the same color as the walls. Because I’m a masochist, I looked down at the ground and instantly regretted it. It was spotted with white droplets.

“I think my libido has dropped down a couple of notches.” I shivered, still staring inside the booth. I couldn’t turn away.

“I didn’t think that was possible,” Henry said.

“Very funny.” I turned to Henry when I saw woman walk up to us. She was the size of The Rock: thick, wide, and terrifying.

“You’re in my booth,” she said with a deep voice . . . a very deep voice.

Henry turned around and saw the yeti towering over him from behind. Instinctively, he took a step back and put his arms around me for protection. “I’m sorry; we didn’t know it was occupied.”

“It is every Wednesday from seven to nine at night. Now move so I can stick my hand down my pants and twiddle myself.”

Sweet Jesus.

“Excuse us,” Henry apologized, stepping us to the side.

The lady grabbed hold of the paper towel dispenser, opened it up and grabbed a stack of towels. “It’s going to be a long night. I’m looking to prune these fingers.” With that, she locked herself in the booth, while Henry and I stared at the now “Occupied” sign on the door.

“Why did I picture her pussy?” Henry asked with a forlorn look on his face.

“Why do I feel like her vagina could gobble me up whole?”

Henry quickly ushered me out of the porn booth room and back into the shop, while saying, “Because I’m pretty sure her vagina eats pretty girls like you for an appetizer. No doubt about it, her vagina has teeth. Big fucking scary ass fangs that rival the chompers on a T-Rex.” Henry gripped my hand. “I think I’m going to need you to hold me tonight while I bury my face in your bosom.”

“How is that different than any other night?” I joked.

Henry gave me a shocked expression. “Cheeky tonight, huh? You see your first porn booth and now you have some sass in those pants. My, my, my.”

“You’re stupid,” I laughed, and walked past him toward a wall of battery-operated magic wands.

Purple, pink, green, black, glitter, matte, thick, skinny, small, short . . . hundreds of different types of dildos. Dolphins, rabbits, veiny, sleek, vibrating, rotating, life-like, fantasy-like . . . so many dildos.

I stared at all the pleasure wands on the wall advertising “The Best Orgasm of Your Life” while my mouth hung open in wonderment.

“It’s like Disneyworld for vaginas,” I muttered, reaching my hand out to touch one. “They’re so pretty, all sparkly like a unicorn’s horn.”

“They just look like different colored dicks to me,” Henry answered, hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels.

“You’re saying these aren’t pretty?” I asked, flabbergasted by his response. “The colors, the sparkles, they’re so . . . captivating.”

“Love, if I found these pretty, we might have a problem.”

“So, you don’t want one in your ass?” I asked, pulling down a strap-on.

“What?” Henry’s eyebrows shot to the top of his hairline. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

I placed the strap-on around my waist for good show and thrusted in his direction. “A book I recently read had a fun little ditty in it of a girl wearing a strap-on and doing her boyfriend from behind while she . . .” I leaned forward and whispered, “stroked him to climax. Since we’re here, we could get some play things for us. I heard men really like to have their prostate played with.” I leaned even closer and said, “I could play with your perineum while I do it. I’ll use the All American dildo. Who doesn’t want the Star Spangled Banner making you all hot and bothered?”

Face bright red, Henry leaned into my ear and said, “Are you hearing yourself right now? You’re practically frothing at the mouth from the idea of having a Fourth of July party up my ass. Do you realize that right now?”

“Of course,” I laughed. “I was just kidding.” I placed the strap-on back on the shelf and checked out their neon collection. I really was kidding about the whole strap-on thing, but once I started talking about it, I actually thought it might be fun. But by the horrified expression on Henry’s face, I knew it would be a no-go. Too bad.

Curiosity wreaked havoc on my brain; it might be fun to be a guy for the night. See what the big deal is all about. Why was having a penis the equivalent to obtaining some kind of superpower? My vagina didn’t seem all that magical. It was a hole covered by a deli blanket. What was so special about that? At least with a penis, you could flop it around, maybe set it on an unsuspecting leg. Pull your ball skin through your zipper hole and place it on your jeans, and then tell someone there was gum stuck on them, only for them to see your gross scrotum. What a treat.

“I would like to have a penis for a day,” I blurted out, stroking the packaging to a rather large-sized vibrator that had a scary looking clitoral stimulator at the bottom of it. “There is so much I want to know.”

“Oh, yeah?” Henry asked, tossing a pancake-sized condom at me. “Make each lady wear one of those on their legs for the night. Last one to tear a hole in their condom wins.”

I observed the giant dick sleeve and laughed. “That’s actually a good idea.”

“So, you want a penis?” Henry continued for me.

“Yeah, just for a day. I want to see what it’s like to look down and see my junk hanging from between my legs. I want to walk up and down the hallway and watch it sway with my movements. I want to stroke it and make it happy and see what it feels like. I want to do the helicopter, I want to do jumping jacks, pretty much anything that will make it flop around, I want to do that. I want to adjust myself in front of a room of people and not care. I want to closely examine my balls and possibly get kicked in the family jewels, just to see what it feels like.”