Page 14

I turn my back to the spray. Hot water hits the base of my neck and runs down my spine. My dick, which had been minding its own business, starts waking up like it heard there might be cake.

“Seriously?”

The body gives no shits what the brain has filed under Big Fuckin’ No. The body remembers the little rush when the chat goes wild. The body likes being wanted.

My hand drifts down, but not to my cock. Not yet. Lower, then around, fingers sliding over wet skin, awkward immediately because there is no normal way to do this standing up in a shower while your own brain heckles you.

The first touch is not pain, but it’s just wrong enough that my whole body jumps. My elbow knocks the shampoo bottle off the shelf. It hits the tub floor with a crack like a gunshot.

“Fuck.”

I jerk upright, slip half an inch, grab the curtain, and nearly rip the whole rod down.

For two seconds, there is nothing but water, panic, and the shampoo bottle rocking against my foot.

Then I look down at myself.

Hard.

My face is hot, and not from the water.

This is ridiculous. I have had sex in cars, bathrooms, one laundry room, and the back hallway of the restaurant one Derby weekend with a woman who later asked if I could make her a calzone. I am not delicate. I am not innocent. I am not some Victorian lady seeing an ankle for the first time.

But this? This has teeth.

When I open the bathroom door, the apartment air feels cool against my damp skin. I wrap the towel around my waist and walk back into the living room.

This time, I pick up the scissors like I mean it. No more fuckin’ around.

The tape gives with one clean slice.

I fold the box flaps back and immediately hate how careful the packing is. Brown paper tucked around the smaller product box. A packing slip folded on top. Everything neat and professional, like someone at a warehouse in Ohio handled my personal crisis with pride in their work.

I lift the product box out.

“Jesus.”

The thing on the front is smooth and black and curved, with a flared base and a little shine added by whoever took the photo. There are words on the packaging. Words like beginner and comfortable and discreet, which should all be reassuring but aren’t.

I take the box in both hands and work my thumb under the top flap. It doesn’t open right away. Of course it doesn’t. Of course this, of all things, comes in packaging built to withstand a tornado.

I pick at the flap harder until it tears.

A clear plastic tray slides halfway out, and there it is. The actual thing—black, smooth, stupidly calm. It sits in the plastic, unashamed of its purpose.

It really is small. Compared to things guys in the chat talk about, this is nothing. Beginner is probably accurate.

That word makes my jaw tighten.

Beginner. Like I signed up for a class. Like passing gets you to the next level.

Work, I tell myself again. They ask, but I decide.

Except that isn’t the whole truth. The truth is messier and more annoying. The room asks, and sometimes I like that it asks. Sometimes the second a username says turn around or show us or let us see, something hot moves through me before I can stop it. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like choosing.

I close my fist around the plug.

Nope. We’re not doing poetry about butt stuff.