Chapter One
Istared at my laptop screen. My cursor hovered over the link my best friend Emma had sent me. The website was sleek and minimalist: a single page with elegant typography and a few carefully chosen photographs of a tropical paradise. In BOLD font at the top of the page, it read:Discover Your Pleasure.
Are you a woman or a man who has never experienced orgasm? Have you tried everything (therapy, toys, different partners) and haven't had any success? We can help.
My name is Syx. I run a company dedicated to women and their needs. For the past eight years, we've dedicated our lives to helping women like you discover their body's capacity for pleasure. We offer a two-week intensive experience on my private island, where we'll work together to unlock what's been missing.
This is not a prostitution ring. This is not a vacation. This is a journey of sexual discovery, tailored specifically to your needs. My success rate is 100%.
If you're interested, fill out the questionnaire below. We only work with three clients per year, and spaces fill quickly. This is a $50,000 investment for two weeks, and it's all-inclusive.
I'd read it five times by then, my heart pounding harder with each pass. Fifty thousand dollars was an insane amount of money, but I had it. My grandmother had left me a substantial inheritance, and it had been sitting in my savings for a while because I couldn't figure out what to do with it. Alongside my alimony, it wouldn't put a dent in my pocket. Emma called it "fuck-off money," but I didn't particularly care for the term. While being a college professor at LeMoyne-Owen had its pros, I had enough money in the bank to disappear for a while. Still, I was old school, and I believed in not wasting my money on frivolous things just because I had it to spend.
I lived a comfortable, even luxurious life because I believed in rewarding myself with the occasional splurge, but spending carelessly would never be my thing.
Still staring blankly at the application, I finally took a deep breath and closed my MacBook. My mind was reeling right then, and I needed to think hard about this before I bit the bullet, if I ever did.
I’m thirty-two years old and have never had an orgasm. I know. It sounded terrible right? It’s almost like a secret that made people gasp, or that plot twist in docuseries that had you covering your mouth. Of the few men I'd slept with before marriage, an orgasm never came to visit me. I'd purchased expensive vibrators and gotten nothing, not even by myself, despite hours of trying.
At first, I thought it was just inexperience. Then I thought it was the wrong partner. Then I wondered if something was physically wrong with me, but my gynecologist assured me everything was normal. I tried sex therapy, mindfulnessexercises, different positions, different techniques, and yoga. Sex just felt...pleasant, maybe okay at best, but the explosive release that women talked about all the time, the gut-wrenching pleasure—I didn't know what that felt like.
For a long time, I thought maybe I just had one of those broken pussies with the inability to do shit besides pee and have a period. Let my ex-husband Malcolm tell it, it was the reason he divorced me, but his infidelity played a major role he tried to sweep under the rug. I started to accept a lot of things in life (one of them being what my pussy could and couldn’t do) and it no longer bothered me, but the timeline worsened most of my issues.
Malcolm, the pro-football player, was a hot commodity, and he lived in the media. His divorce was the most talked-about thing amid his vast career. My intuition led me to believe that he was fucking around, and with the proof I had from the private investigator, it was the icing on the cake. I served him divorce papers first, but his publicist pulled a double whammy and released a statement about his "moving forward." Malcolm was too much of a dickhead to clear anything up. I never wanted anything to go public, but according to him, it was good for press. I walked away two million dollars richer with my head held high, relieved of all the stress his arrogant ass had put me through.
But then that was it. The world knew me as the wife of a football player, and all of my business became public when he went on to do interviews instead of mourning his grievances like he should’ve been. His comment was twisted, but people knew how to read between the lines and the bullshit."I love her, and I always will, but she has some physical issues that need to be worked on. I'm a man, and I like pussy and a hot meal after a long day. All she could give me was the hot meal—at least it was the only enjoyable thing."Talk about being embarrassed. Thatnigga took his bald-headed, pigeon-toed, gap-toothed ass on live television and said that stupid shit! Have you ever had to serve your ex a cease and desist?
I'd never been so humiliated in all my life, and that sort of experience tainted me. My dating life was in shambles. Men were weird, and they only approached me because they were his fans. Most of them asked if I could get his autograph, probing around in his personal business, just overly fanned the fuck out, and it turned me off.
I guess you could say I remained celibate, because for the last few months of our marriage, Malcolm and I didn't participate in anything sexual. He didn't look twice at me when I was getting undressed to showerorwhen I was finished and getting dressed after. If we were acting roles, people would have put us on the A-list because of how natural everything seemed.
Part of me wanted to fight for our marriage, but it was useless when I was the only one willing to get in the ring. Malcolm made it perfectly clear that we wouldn't revisit the idea of "us," and that was one of the hardest pill I'd ever had to swallow. I never fathomed getting married only to be divorced, let alone being married for only three years, walking down a path that led us nowhere. My visits to our therapist were spent alone, that I attended faithfully so I didn't lose my damn mind.
I’m happy to say now, two years later, I was okay and sane with being single. I loved having my freedom, though I despised living in a society where women felt like they needed a man for everything. Maybe I was an outlier because I was fresh out of a marriage and didn't want to jump into anything new. Nonetheless, I enjoyed being able to do what the fuck I wanted without having to answer to anyone or explain my reasoning for things. Still, I don’t like being lonely, and I want to be able to have a man to do spontaneous things with like go on dates, rub my feet after being in couture heels all day, run me bubble baths,massage me or shit around the house—catch spiders, change a lightbulb, fix the sink, fix the hot water heater and don’t get me started on car maintenance. I know for sure my mechanic overcharged me because of my lack of knowledge. Furthermore, I don’t need a man just to say I have one. I want it to feel valued and appreciated, because being married for three years to a jackass taught me how it felt not to be.
Later That Day
"Whew," I sighed as I carried my groceries inside my apartment.
With my Beats earbuds in my ears, I placed the groceries on the counter, then trotted to the garage to retrieve my briefcase and whatever else I needed while talking shit on the phone to my best friends Emma and Mina.
"I'm sorry I missed lunch today. That snowstorm set me back further than I planned," I complained as I placed my Brandon Blackwood purse on one of the barstools underneath my MacBook.
My dedication to my students at LeMoyne-Owen was so immense that it occupied most of my time. Having graduated from the top of my class, I was also a proud sorer of Zeta Phi Beta. Earning my master's in chemistry, I honored the legacy of the many Black women in my family whose sacrifices enabled my success. Most of the time, I didn't get off until late, and I didn't have much time to freelance, especially since it decided to snow this month, pushing most of my classes back and resulting in teaching online for the remainder of the week until I was told otherwise by the board.
"I had to get out and get me something to drink," Mina mentioned, followed by a deep sigh. "I've been around bad-ass, nappy-headed-ass kids all day. I'm sick of it," she snapped.Mina was a third-grade teacher, and she loved her career, so she wasn't talking about those kids. She was talking about the children she gave birth to. Shelby County Schools had delayed school for another week because the roadways were still pretty bad in certain neighborhoods. Also, another snowstorm was predicted to happen next week. So, her seeds were on her shit list lately.
I giggled as I removed all of my groceries from the plastic bags and only kept out what I needed for dinner tonight. The rest was getting put away. Immediately after, I slid my feet out of my BearPaws and into my slippers I kept by the front door. Then I removed my Nike coat and hung it in the hallway closet.
"Don't do too much," Emma spoke up, sounding like her mouth was full. "I need to come over and see my babies. I miss them so much,” she gushed.
"I second that. Did Legend like the remote-control car I got him for Christmas?" I asked her.
"Girl, Legend tore that car up the same day. That's why I don't buy their ass shit, but clothes and shoes. Hold on really quick," she said. On the receiving end, we heard her yell out, "Sit y'all's ass down up there before I open up a can of whoop-ass! I ain't about to keep repeating my motherfucking self!" Then she returned to the phone call with a normal tone.
Emma and I were on the other end giggling because this was never-ending for Mina, but we were used to it at this point.
"What are they up there doing?" Emma probed.
