“Let me guess. You have a date.” Carla knew she had no right to be annoyed or even surprised, but she really didn’t want to be sitting home alone again tonight. She was hoping for drinks with Janet, maybe even dinner or a girl movie.
“Naturally. And so should you. Now go find a stiff dick to mount. I think you need it. I mean, look at you. You’re positively oozing sexy. But first throw away that fucking special needs scarf. You’ll scare men away with that.”
Carla gave Janet a little wave, then once her friend left the bar, she looked down at herself.
Oozing sexy?
She was wearing her usual power pantsuit, one that just last week, Janet had referred to as funeral wear. Obviously Janet was just trying to get rid of her so she wouldn’t miss her hot date.
“Hey there,” the bartender said, clearing away Janet’s empty glass.
Carla looked up, recognizing Jeff, the cute-but-young twenty-something who’d hit on Janet last week. She motioned to her nearly full Manhattan. “I’m good.”
“Good? I’ll say. Are you new here?”
“New?” Carla repeated out loud. “I’ve been coming here for five years.”
“Oh, yeah. Janet’s friend. Did you lose some weight? Get some work done?”
“Excuse me?”
“You look different. I mean great. Really great.”
Carla stared at him, her friend’s comments on the way out suddenly making sense. “Janet put you up to this, didn’t she?”
“Up to what?”
“Why are you saying these things?”
“I think that’s obvious. You’re hot.”
“Really?”
“Hell, yeah.”
The boy was cute, but not exactly the most brilliant bulb, not even in this dim bar. He couldn’t be acting.
Does he really think I’m hot?
“Want to go out after work? I get off at two. So you’ll get off at two-fifteen.”
Carla thought about Janet’s parting advice. Why not? It wasn’t as if she was in a relationship or had a hot date waiting. Not even a date she had to pay. Love him and leave him, use him and lose him, mount him and discount him.
What the hell am I thinking?
I don’t need a man. Any man.
It’s not like I’m rebounding.
It’s not like I’m so horny I can’t control myself.
It’s not like I want to fuck someone to forget about Jake.
Is it?
That’s what Janet thought she should do, but Carla had never wanted to be like Janet.
“No, thanks,” she told him. “You couldn’t handle me. I’d break you in half.”
Leaving her drink, she got up, grabbed her purse, and made for the door before she changed her mind.
In the car, Carla tried to make sense of all the confusion swirling around in her head.
Sex is healthy. Sex is good.
Kinky sex is good.
Kinky sex is sooooooo good.
Losing control isn’t good. That’s what went wrong with Jake.
So where is the perfect balance?
In her peripheral vision, Carla saw the storefront sign
LOVER’S BOUTIQUE
.
It was an adult bookstore. She must have passed it a hundred times, without paying attention.
But now it had her full attention.
ADULT GIFTS AND NOVELTIES.
Carla slammed on the brakes, heart pounding. Without consciously knowing it, she parked in front of the shop. The windows were blacked out, no doubt to prevent impressionable youngsters from gaping at the many perversions inside.
I’m not fucking some guy I just met in a bar. But do I want this instead?
Carla was on the fence. She wasn’t going to see Jake again. At least, not in
that
way. He brought out feelings in her that she couldn’t quite pin down, challenged her control.
I’m not Janet.
I’m not some out-of-control sex addict with perverted fantasies.
So it stood to reason that being in control meant doing things in moderation. Being tied up in Jake’s dungeon of pleasure was way over the line. But there was nothing wrong with a little fantasy in the privacy of her own home.
And what better way to explore that fantasy than a new toy or two?
Here goes nothing.
Carla got out of the car. Then she pushed through the door and entered the sex shop, expecting God to strike her down with a lightning bolt or one of the other partners in her firm to be watching in horror as she sneaked in. She fished around in her purse for her sunglasses, and then—what the hell—the scarf she’d made, which covered up the lower half of her face.
But, surprisingly, the shop wasn’t like she’d always imagined them to be. Rather than a dimly lit, filthy den of depravity populated by molester-types in trench coats and sunglasses, this store was bright and clean and almost cheerful. Customers included two couples, one single guy in a suit, and two women giggling at a bachelorette party display. Signs hung from the ceiling, helpfully pointing out different sections.
MOVIES
S/M & BONDAGE
ANAL
FEMALE TOYS
MALE TOYS
ROLE PLAYING
Carla tried to look natural as she wandered past the role-playing aisle, glancing nonchalantly at naughty nurse and French maid outfits, and doing a double-take when she saw a pair of men’s underwear in the shape of an elephant’s head, complete with a form-fitting trunk. At the endcap there was a box with a picture of grapes and a naked ass, labeled
BUTT WINE KIT.
She wandered past the male toys section, which included a wide variety of rubber things that fit over the male anatomy, or that the male anatomy could fit into. One that stood out was a large, life-sized sculpture made of some sort of wiggly, jelly-like material. It was an enormous pair of breasts, with a realistic-looking vagina stuck directly in the middle of them. The item was called
THE PERFECT WOMAN.
Carla tried to picture what sort of man would buy something like that.
All of them, probably.
She was very curious to look at the bondage gear, but a bit intimidated too, so she opted to start with something a little more mainstream. Carla already had a Hitachi, but she didn’t own a dildo. Janet’s summer squash idea didn’t hold much appeal, so she wandered to the female toys aisle and was overwhelmed by the sheer variety available.
“I’m staring at more dicks than there are in the United States Congress,” she mumbled to herself.
“May I help you?”
The offer was from a woman behind the counter. Younger and on the stocky side, the clerk sported short hair and a nose ring. Carla guessed she was a lesbian, and her guess was confirmed by the woman’s bright yellow t-shirt, on which was printed in big letters,
LESBIAN
.
Hey. Wait a second. That’s the same clerk from Good Yarning Seattle.
Now she was wearing a nose ring, leather pants, and a sleeveless shirt that showed off her tattoos.
“I saw you yesterday. In the yarn store.”
“So?”
“I dunno. It’s kind of weird that you work at a place that sells yarn and a place that sells sex toys.”
“Says a woman who shops at a place that sells yarn and a place that sells sex toys. Nice retarded scarf.”
“I was rushed.”
“No returns. So what can I help you with here?”
“I’m just looking,” Carla said.
“For a dildo?”
Carla glanced around, embarrassed. But no one in the store was paying attention. The guy in the suit was holding a DVD Featuring naked dwarves mud wrestling. The title was
SHORT SHITS.
Yikes. That’s not mud they’re wrestling in.
The giggling girls were still at the bachelorette section, play sword-fighting with two lolly-pops shaped like cocks. The couple was looking at—OMG, leather paddles—and whispering to each other and smiling.
Carla turned back to the clerk. “I’ve never bought one before.”
“Is it for yourself? Or a gift?” The clerk spoke in the same bored monotone as she had at the hobby store, like nothing could be less exciting than her current job.
“A gift?” Carla asked.
“Friend. Sister. Mom. Grandmother.”
Carla caught a sideways glance of a butt plug with a pump so it could be inflated. A scene played out in her head of Nana opening it up and Carla saying, “Merry Christmas, Grandma!”
“No, no, it’s for me,” Carla said, meandering over to the counter.
“Well, how big are you?” the clerk asked.
“Big? What, my height? My waist?”
“Your vagina.”
“My vagina? I wasn’t aware vaginas came in different sizes.”
The saleswoman bent down to search behind the counter, then returned with a dildo roughly the length and width of a good sized baguette. It was twice the size of the one Jake had used on her.
“Oh my God, I’m not that big,” Carla said. “I don’t think horses are that big. You could kill Black Beauty with that.”
The clerk shrugged. “Pop out a few kids, your female parts can get stretched out. This gives a girl that
filled up
feeling.”
“That gives a girl that
call 911
feeling. Something smaller, please.”
The clerk shrugged, and brought out a dildo no bigger than a tampon.
“What is that for?” Carla asked. “My belly button? I’m afraid I’d lose it inside me and never get it back. Does it have a string attached?”
“Picking out a proper dildo is a process,” the clerk said. “Like trying on wedding dresses.”
“So is there a fitting room? That seems unsanitary.” Another scene popped into Carla’s mind. A spin-off of the successful reality show
Say Yes to the Dress
.
It would probably be a hit.
“Here’s a popular model.” The clerk brought out a reasonably-sized flesh-colored dildo. “It has a suction cup on the bottom.”
“Why?” Carla asked.
“For sticking to things.” The clerk pressed the base to her forehead, and it stayed there like an obscene horn.
“For all of those unicorn fantasies I’ve been having for years,” Carla said. “It brings a whole new meaning to the phrase
dick head
.”
The clerk made the dildo start to spin like a propeller.
“Can you take that off? I keep thinking it’s going to shoot at me.”
She pulled it off her forehead with an audible POP and stuck it on the counter, where it wobbled to and fro as if waving goodbye. “This one is the George Clooney model. We also have the Denzel Washington.” She pulled out a much larger dildo in a chocolate brown color.
“Denzel seems… intimidating. Do you have him in a smaller size? Maybe a Gary Coleman?”
“Also, if you don’t want it to look realistic…”
“That’s realistic? Denzel wouldn’t be able to put on his pants if he was packing that.”
“…we also have shapes made to specially fit a woman’s contours. For example.”
The clerk placed a lime green piece of plastic on the counter that had absolutely zero resemblance to a penis. It was some sort of curvy, twisty, objet d’art that looked more like abstract sculpture than a sex toy. Carla impulsively picked it up.
“I have no idea what this is. Which end goes in where?”
The woman disappeared behind the counter, then came up carrying a pelvis; an exact, life-sized copy of a woman’s butt and vadge, cut off at the stomach and thighs. She plopped it on the counter as if it was a rump roast. Carla marveled at the detail. It looked completely real, down to the line of pubic hair. Impulsively she gave the pubes a little stroke, then giggled self-consciously, wondering why the hell she’d just done that.
“It can be inserted like this,” the clerk said, violently assaulting one toy with the other toy, the move more stabby than sexy.
“Ouch,” Carla said.
“Or this.” More violent assault, but this time the woman kept up the motion, reminding Carla of the shower scene in
Psycho
. “Or you can twist so it goes into the vagina and anus at the same time.”
“D.P.!” Carla exclaimed, knowing the term because Janet had mentioned it at the bar. “It means double penetration.”
“For that we have this model.” The clerk produced a dildo that looked like an ordinary dildo, except at the base was a smaller, slimmer dildo.
“One in the pink, one in the stink,” Carla said, strangely pleased she remembered. She really had come a long way in a very short time. A week ago she wouldn’t have dreamed of stepping into a place like this. Now she even understood some of the terminology and merchandise. “Are these things easy to clean?”
“Dishwasher safe.”
“Ahh.”
I just need to remember not to wash it with my dinnerware. That’d be gross.
“Are you looking for one that vibrates? I can show you some of our new autumn line.”
Already a little overwhelmed by the seemingly endless variety around her, Carla shook her head. “Um, I think, uh, I think I’ll go with the George Clooney.”
The clerk picked it up.
“Wait! Denzel. I’ll go with Denzel.”
The clerk shrugged, then brought it over to the register. “Do you also need lube?”
Carla laughed. “No, no, I don’t need lube.”
Staring at Denzel, she was already getting wet.
“It’s eighty-six forty-eight, total,” the clerk said.
Carla fished for her credit card and noticed the wedding ring on the clerk’s finger.
“So, you’re married.”
“Yep,” she said, running the card.
“And you’re a lesbian.”
The clerk glanced down at her
LESBIAN
shirt and then said, “Your grasp of the obvious is astonishing.”
“So, um, how does that work? I mean, what’s it like being married to a woman?” Carla knew she was getting a little personal, but since she and the clerk had just bonded over a variety of dildos and a rubber hunk of female anatomy, Carla was feeling bold.
“What is it like? Well, I’m sure you can imagine. I get home from work. Then we go shopping for shoes and braid each-other’s hair. And at night we go to bed and shoot ping-pong balls at each other out of our pussies.”
Carla was at a rare loss for words.
The clerk rolled her eyes. “It’s like being married to anyone. Good days and bad days, but we’re happy because there is love and mutual respect.” She handed Carla a receipt to sign then gestured to the store shelves and displays. “The paraphernalia doesn’t matter. This outside shell doesn’t matter. Inside is what counts.”