I don’t want to sound reluctant. I just…like to know what I’m walking into.
Tippi:
LOL don’t worry - no nude shots of you… this time! I need someone to take footage of me in a local adult store tonight. You in? X
I check the time. Six PM. I’d assumed shops like that closedearly, but what do I know? I’m hardly an authority on x-rated shop trading hours.
And I’m not going to turn down an opportunity to see her.
Jacob:
Yes, I’m in. When and where? X
Tippi:
7PM outside Climax in town. This is gonna be fun :D x
Under the anxiety, I believe her.
I get there early on purpose. The last thing I want is to stand alone outside an adult shop, looking like I got lost on the way to committing a crime. So I loiter outside the gamer store next door, pretending to examine their Magic: The Gathering display.
My attention keeps drifting to Climax’s window. A silver bar runs across the glass with handcuffs dangling from it in every colour: chrome, neon pink, matte black. Simple. Effective.
I’ve never used handcuffs. Then again, I’ve never bought anything that would be sold in Climax. Curiosity uncoils warm in my gut, pulling my gaze back again and again.
Seven o’clock comes and goes. Five minutes past seven. Ten. I wonder if I should worry. Tippi never struck me as a “to the second” type. Time probablyisan illusion to someone like her.
She’s so unlike me she might as well be from a different planet, and yet I keep circling towards her. Maybe that doesn’t have to be depressing. Maybe you can admire someone’s way of living without trying to become a carbon copy. Maybe she can be a kind of… north star. It’s still my job to steer my own ship.
I spot her from the end of the street. She scans the shop fronts until her eyes land on me, and then she smiles.
It hits like an electric punch to the gut.
Tippi’s in a sundress that looks like it was designed specifically for her: bright print, tie straps, hem swaying around her knees. Her hair is up in a high, swinging ponytail, curls bouncing. The style shows off the line of her shoulders and the ink on her arm, the colours shifting when she moves. Her legs are exactly as I remembered: toned, smooth, unfairly good.
And somehow, her face lights up like she actuallyishappy to see me.
“It’s all set up for you,” she says, handing me her phone already open to the camera app. “Thank you for waiting. I had a grumpy RhiRhi situation.”
“No problem. Is she OK?” To my surprise, I feel… steady. Less keyed up now she’s here. Since Pancake Night and the assessment, something in me has gradually unfurled.
“Oh yeah. Nothing an extra story from her daddy couldn’t fix. Shall we?” She tips her head towards Climax, and we step inside together.
A mellow pop track thrums quietly through the shop from hidden speakers. The lighting is warm, flattering, not harsh; it looks more like a quirky gift shop than the dens of iniquity my teenage brain once imagined, and my adult brain spent the past hour dreading.
The owners greet Tippi like an old friend. Lianne and Rush: punk couple, rainbow hair, enough piercings between them to set off every airport metal detector. Their delight about being featured onJust the Tippiis obvious, which serves to reiterate what a successshe is in her community.
I hang back, letting them chat, and take in the front room. By the till, there are stained glass mirrors shaped like vulvas; fifty pounds each, and genuinely beautiful. The shelves closest to the entrance are low-key: dice games, edible underwear, novelty cards.
Local flavour stands out, as well, like a display of erotic novels by independent writers, and framed nudes by a local artist. The subjects vary in age, build, and conventional attractiveness. One of the most striking is a middle-aged woman with a port wine stain and stretch marks. She’s utterly naked and utterly unashamed, chin lifted, gaze steady. The painting radiates a kind of calm, content defiance.
“That’s one of my favourites too,” Lianne says, catching me looking. Her voice is warm, matter-of-fact. She radiates the kind of energy that suggests there is very little in the world that would shock her.
“Beautiful work,” I say. And it is. I don’t feel remotely embarrassed to have been caught staring, purely on that basis.
Tippi glances over and gives me a quick, approving smile that pulls one out of me in return. It’s absurd how much I soak up her tiny signs of praise.
“Ready?” she asks the owners.
