As long as you’re sure.
ME
Very. Choose the toys, Elena. The ones you want to try.
10
“So sex toys, huh?” said Alex, giving me a knowing look.
I grabbed my friend by the arm, dragged her into my storefront, locked the door, and flipped the Open sign to Back Soon. I didn’t get much walk-in traffic, but I wasn’t taking a chance with being overheard. It was why I’d asked Alex to meet there instead of going out for the lunch I so desperately wanted. Thank goodness I hadn’t gotten around to hiring an assistant yet.
“My, aren’t you in a hurry.” Alex grinned at me, clearly enjoying my discomfort. “Don’t worry. I brought a wide variety.” She set an innocuous-looking tote on my desk alongside a bag from the restaurant around the corner.
“What is that?” I asked, uncertain whether I meant the tote or the deli bag. I’d been so busy with the Essex project; I hadn’t managed more than a protein bar and coffee hours ago when my day started. That I’d prioritized meeting Alex to talk about Jake’s proposition/request/sex toy command—I wasn’t sure what to call it—over food showed how off-kilter he’d thrown me.
“This is a muffuletta and kettle cooked chips.” She opened the deli bag and started pulling out waxed paper-wrappedpackages. “You need to fortify yourself for this kind of sex talk, and the power bars you normally eat won’t cut it.”
I made sure I ate. Real food, not just bars and diet stuff. I’d had slightly less than a full-blown eating disorder in college, and I’d been careful ever since. I kept to a schedule whenever possible and had eating alarms as guardrails on my phone to make sure I didn’t go too long without food.
“You’re the best.” I handed Alex a seltzer from the small refrigerator built into the cabinets that ran along one wall of my office and took another for myself. “I’m hungry.” Even after all these years I was careful with the words I used, acknowledging my appetite without ever saying I was starving. Starving myself could feel seductive if I let it. I was careful not to let it.
I didn’t bother to hide my groan of pleasure as I unwrapped the muffaletta and inhaled the spicy meat and pickled giardiniera scent.
“That’s a good start.” Alex waved at me with what looked like a purple torpedo as long as her hand.
“What in the name of all that’s holy is that?” I set down the sandwich I’d only moments before been ready to offer my undying love and stared at the things my friend was unpacking from her bag.
“It’s a butt plug.” She laid the purple monster next to three other more normal-sized plugs.
“For what? A sasquatch? That’s a butt plug.” I pointed to a relatively small chrome tear-shaped toy with a pink heart-shaped jewel on the base. “I don’t know what that is,” I motioned to the purple thing. “But I know where you shouldn’t put it.”
I picked up my sandwich and took a fortifying bite. Alex was right; this conversation was going to require more sustenance than my normal lunch salad provided.
“This is a princess plug.” She held the chrome toy by its jeweled base. “These are anal trainers.” She motioned to thereasonably sized—if reasonable was a word you could use when talking about anal trainers—black plugs lined up in a graduated row before picking up the purple one with her other hand. “This is the Giant Destroyer. You work up to this one.”
“It looks like it ate all the other ones.” I took another bite of the muffuletta and tried to relax my eyebrows. They’d hit my hairline when she waved the Destroyer around. “You can put that one back in the bag.”
“It can be a bit intimidating. It’s not really my thing, but some people like pushing themselves to the edge.”
“The edge of what?” My voice had taken on a frantic tone. I sucked in a breath and redirected my attention back to my friend’s face. “Never mind. Forget I asked.”
“If you’re going to do it, you’ve got to be able to talk about it. To ask questions, right?” She mercifully tucked the purple monster back into her tote bag.
“I guess. Yes.” It shouldn’t be this difficult to talk about sex toys.
I had more than one vibrator, and I considered myself fairly flexible when it came to sex. The whole reason we were having the conversation was because my friends-with-benefits guy—a man whose relationship with me consisted of carefully negotiated sex and who I’d already let spank me—wanted to play with some sex toys and asked me to bring him the ones that interested me. But when I’d thought about sex toys, I’d imagined fur-lined handcuffs and maybe one of those heart-shaped paddles—9 ½ Weeksstuff not purple Destroyer dungeon-level stuff. I should have known, given Alex’s specialty, I’d get an extensive education. In butt plugs. Lord.
“Is there something in particular you’re interested in? These can be fun.” She slid a string of beads out of a velvet bag.
Ranging from small gumball to Everlasting Gobstopper size, the beads were black with a matte finish that made me curious totouch them to see if they were as soft as they looked. I pushed my sandwich to the side, silently promising myself I’d finish it later, and wiped my fingertips on the napkin.
“Gimme,” I said, holding out my hand.
Alex was right. If I couldn’t get comfortable with the idea, I wouldn’t be able to do it, and I wanted to do it. Not just because I was curious—I was—but because it was the first thing Jake asked me for. I liked the idea of pleasing him, even if we weren’t in an actual relationship.
Alex dropped the string of beads onto my palm. The silicone surface was exactly as soft as I’d expected, but I hadn’t expected them to move. I fought back the similarities to a middle school visit to a reptile farm when one of the handlers placed a snake in my hand. The balls didn’t vibrate exactly, but they moved. Every time my hand shifted, something inside them rolled, making them feel alive.
“They have an internal free weight that moves every time you move. It’s more subtle than a vibrator, but the unexpectedness can feel amazing when they’re inside you.” Alex took a bite of her sandwich and chewed, watching as I rolled the beads around in my hand.
