So here it is :
Sex Shop Valentine
By: Terri L. Weiss
So I’m always the one who changes
the toilet paper roll. Always. Because two or three little sheets are stuck to
the cardboard on, like, every roll, after my boyfriend’s done. Sorry, but I’m definitely
not a guy. I need more than that to get clean, you know? And another thing? I
don’t understand why he thinks bottle caps need to be screwed on so tight I
need a pair of pliers to open them. I mean, peanut butter doesn’t evaporate.
And omigod, can’t he stick with watching one
show from start to finish? I wish he’d hand over the remote to me, cuz at
least I know how to be decisive. I think the only reason we’re still dating
after a whole year is, well, you know. Some things make us more tolerant.
I have to admit, I’ve been feeling
a little guilty about something I did two weeks ago. Okay, it was
pretty bad.
Not like he didn’t deserve it. He’d dropped his clean laundry basket on
the floor, right near the bed, a week earlier. Then, instead of putting his
things away, he used the basket like a dresser. Because his actual dresser is a
disaster. I know, I know, more typical guy behavior, right? But an entire week?
Really?
Maybe I went a teeny bit far
when I dumped the cat box in the remaining pile of clean underwear and socks in
the basket. I told him, “Slob doesn’t work for me, dude. Next time, put your
laundry away like the rest of the world.” The thing is, the rest of the world
was hanging out in our apartment at that moment, watching the Superbowl.
Awkward. Not for me, but definitely for him. I suspect his friends were
embarrassed for him, too, even though they know what I’m like. Hell, I've dated
half of them, which is how I met him in the first place. All the tech guys at
Slate.com get take-out from the deli where I work.
As I said, slob doesn’t work for
me, but full-out psycho isn't gonna work for my boyfriend once he stops
thinking with his dick. Cuz, to be honest, I’d crawl into a hole and never come
out if he dumped me. He might be The One, as dumb as that sounds.
With Valentine’s Day looming, I
decide it’s time for me to turn over a new leaf before it’s too late. I don’t
want to hear it’s a Hallmark holiday, blah blah blah. For me, Valentine’s Day
is gonna be Terminator Salvation Day. The big question is, exactly what do I do?
A sudden burst of supercali sweetness would make my boyfriend suspicious, like
I’m insincere or up to no good. Plus I don’t know if I could live with myself
if I OD on sugar. On the other hand, gradual reform would test my resolve to
the breaking point, and he might be long gone by the time my transformation
from the Dark Side is complete.
No, I need to do something
übercool, and make it count. How ‘bout Yankees tickets on Opening Day? Nah, his
boss would never let him take time off work. Besides, that’s over two months
away. Suppose I cook him an amazing meal? Boringggg. I do that already. Umm, take
him to the zoo, cuz he loves animals? It’s February in New York. Fuggedaboudit.
I have a brain flash, unoriginal
but totally appealing: buy a great sex toy online to make Valentine’s Day
something special. Then, after an incredible night, I’ll stay motivated to
behave myself, and he’ll be so blown away by our tremendous feats of magic that
he’ll never realize I've been kinda over the top. To keep it a surprise, I’ll
do my sex toy research when he’s working late or asleep.
Life between the Superbowl kitty
poo event and Valentine’s Day goes on as usual. Work, dinner, tv, sex, sleep,
rinse, repeat. Then Thursday rolls around a week earlier than I’d
expected. Don’t ask me why I thought I had more time. It must be from
slicing all that meat and cheese. One too many ham-and-swiss-on-rye,
hold-the-mustard, sandwiches. Cuz here it is, Valentine’s Day, and, except for
a bunch of e-cards, I’m empty-handed after I finish work. I’m actually
terrified that my boyfriend will come home with flowers when I have nothing for
him.
Talk about feeling like a total
loser. It’s too late to order something on the Internet. Unless it’s an instant
download, like a video stream, or movie tickets, or an e-book, none of which is
exactly übercool. I want to give him something amazing that he can hold in his
hands, besides me, of course.
There’s only one thing I can do
now: Go to an actual sex store -- for the first time since I turned 18 and thought
I was so badass -- and buy something for tonight. As per my original plan. So I
Google ‘sex shops New York’ and add my county. In an Adobe flash, three stores
pop up. One is only eight miles away. I vaguely remember commercials for the
place on a local cable station.
Okay, even with my navi on, I have to do two u-turns to find True Blue Rendezvous. So how weird is it that a shop could be right on an entrance ramp to the highway? There it is, along a little squiggly bypass road. Easy off, easy on, for the horny people who go to these stores. Buy a dildo, throw it in the car, head to the Super 8 motel at the next exit. Damn. I can’t believe I’m pulling into the parking lot to join the Super 8 crowd.
Okay, even with my navi on, I have to do two u-turns to find True Blue Rendezvous. So how weird is it that a shop could be right on an entrance ramp to the highway? There it is, along a little squiggly bypass road. Easy off, easy on, for the horny people who go to these stores. Buy a dildo, throw it in the car, head to the Super 8 motel at the next exit. Damn. I can’t believe I’m pulling into the parking lot to join the Super 8 crowd.
I wait in my car for a few
minutes to check out the customers. The other cars could’ve been parked at
Dunkin' Donuts. Nothing skanky. A Camry, a Civic, a Wrangler. One beaten-up
Econoline with an NRA sticker -- well, there’s always somebody like that
around. Although, in all fairness, if I were in Tennessee with my New York
plates and my ‘First Amendment First’ decal, the locals would think I was a
flaming crazy. But this is New York -- who says I gotta be fair?
An average-looking blonde in
average-looking clothes wanders out of the store. She disappears into the
Civic, and drives off. Hopefully I won't be the only woman in the store now.
I’m in the middle of zipping up my jacket when a black car pulls into the lot.
Two swarthy guys, probably in their late 20’s, like me, pop out. They laugh as
they go into the store, Clickkk, off goes the engine. I grab my handbag and slam the door behind me.
There’s a bzzzz when I
climb the stoop, push open the door and step inside the store. Behind the front
counter is an array of bongs and pipes. A surly-looking Indian guy slouches by
the cash register.
“Excuse me,” I say. My voice
sounds squeaky. “Can I ask you a few questions?” What am I, an undercover cop?
The Indian guy points at the
door. “No questions, no answers. Get this clam, then maybe. You leave now.”
Huh? C‘mon, I need help, give me
a break, I think. “This clam?” I ask.
“This clam-UH’” he says. “No
liability that way.” For a guy who’s English-challenged, he sure knows how to
turn a legal phrase or two.
“Disclaimer?” I ask. “I’m not
suing anyone.”
He shrugs and turns his back to
me.
“Lookit,” I say. “I want to buy
something for my boyfriend, that’s all.”
He busies himself with the bong
display. Hell with him. I march toward the center of the store where I spot the
two guys from the black car.
“Nothin’ good left,” says the
taller one. He points to an empty metal rack. “Fatty Patty’s gone.” There’s a
blow up display doll above the rack. She’s obese and red-cheeked, say, two feet
tall and just as wide. Taped to her belly, a torn strip of paper proclaims,
'Love my fat.' Right next to her dangles a single pair of plus-sized crotchless
fishnets. The tall dude pulls the fishnets off the rack and frowns. “Wrong color.”
The shorter dude hands him a
package. “Think she’ll like this?” he asks.
"Absolutely." Mr. Tall
grins, and tucks a plus-sized schoolgirl costume under his arm. “See anything
else?”
I edge past the big girl teddy
rack -- also empty, I’m afraid. I want to tell Mr. Tall there are plenty of
Judy inflatables, but Judy is an average white girl, probably unappealing to a
dude like him. Maybe he’d like a blow-up Guidette, The Whore From The Jersey
Shore. There are two packaged Guidettes left on the rack, with a logo that
says: ‘I want your friggin’ sausage.’
Wait a sec, who am I shopping
for?
I pass the video department. Why
would anyone buy videos in this day and age, with free porn all over the
Internet? An old guy, that’s who. A grey-haired guy in a suit looks frazzled in
front of the ‘Big Tits’ section. He flags down a girl with a nametag on her
sweatshirt. “Miss? Do you have a searchable database?” he asks.
I don't hang around for the
answer. In the near-empty BDSM section, a lonely pair of panties with an
attached leash lies in a heap on the floor. I hurry past the handcuff shelf.
There's a rhinestones studded pair that catches my eye. Nah, I'm not into that
stuff anymore. In the back of the store, the dildo aisle beckons. I‘m hoping to
find something there, even if it’s just for laughs. Lots of six-inch white-guy
‘American Topper’ dildos stand nice and perky, all in a row. Labels for
‘Antonio,’ ‘Juan’ and ‘Leroy’ are taped above empty shelves. Sold out. I glance
at the photos: Seven, eight and nine-inch Hispanic and Af-Ams. Plain vanilla is
definitely lameass at True Blue Rendezvous.
The girl with the nametag dashes
over to me. “We had a run on these for Valentine’s Day, sorry. But I just found
one Suavé at the register, if he'll do.” She pronounces it ‘Swah-vay’ with an
authoritative accent, and hands me a twelve-inch Hispanic model.
“Not quite what I was looking
for.” I head toward what I think is a locked jewelry case with a side-mounted
spotlight. ‘Vibrators, $199.99 And Up.’
“I know, they're expensive,
right?” I jump, because I didn’t see the girl following me. “How 'bout these?
They start at $99.99, made in the USA and guaranteed safe.” She tugs a sealed
plastic box from a metal rod. It looks like it contains purple jumper cables.
‘Vibrating Nipple Clamps.’ The purple control box has a red, heart-shaped
button.
The plastic casing looks strong
enough to house a rocket-launcher. I mean, it would take so long to break open
the package, my nipples would fall off. I guess that's where pliers, aka
bottle-opener, would come in handy again.
“Um, thanks. I think I’ll need
to come back here with my boyfriend.” This isn’t working out like I planned.
I’m not buying anything, just wasting my time. When I don't have time to waste.
I hear the same bzzzz as I push through the front door and unlock my
car.
What the hell am I gonna do?
On the way back to my apartment
complex, I pass a Barnes & Noble. I make a U and head in. Even though the
store is deserted, I hope I’ll find a cute card or something. Most of the
Valentine’s Day cards at B&N are gone, so it won’t take me long to scour
the leftovers.
A cue-ball dude with a soul
patch appears by my side. The green apron he’s wearing looks pretty silly, but
I know it’s not his choice. I mean, my yellow-and-white uniform is totally
idiotic, but that’s what all the deli clerks wear. So who am I to judge, right?
“Can I help you, miss?”
“Just browsing,” I answer.
“Looks like you’re pretty cleaned out.”
“Who
are you shopping for?” he asks. “Boyfriend, husband?”
“Boyfriend.” Lucky for him I’m
not a lesbian.
“Follow me.” He crosses the
store and stops in front of a table stacked with glossy, all-black books. No
writing on the black covers, just thin blue lines along the inside edge. He
hands me one of the books, and when I flip it over, I see the back is solid
black, too. As well as the spine. There’s nothing on the book flaps, either. No
title, no author, no description. “We just got these in,” he says. “They’ll be
sold out by tomorrow night. Can’t keep ‘em in stock.”
“What is it?” I ask. I flip the
pages, expecting it to be a sex manual, but all I see are words. I peer at one
of the pages. The first sentence has big words I don’t understand. Except for
the word ‘cock,’ which shows up like twenty times. Mmm-hmm, must be a sex book.
“Bestseller," he says,
"There are seven books in the set. One blue line is Book One, two blue
lines for
Book Two, and so on. You can read them separately, or pick one or
two. It all works, no matter how many you have. You choose to read them whatever
way you want, in whatever order you want.” He opens one of the books to the
title page. ‘Book One. Military Confusion.’
“What’s the book about?”
“Nothing, really. Absurdist
flash fiction is the best way for me to explain it. It appeals to men much more
than women, which is why I’m suggesting it to you."
I rummage through the stack of
black covers for two, three, four blue lines, for each of the books.
‘Book Three. Family Inclusion.’
I flip to a random page toward the middle of the book. Besides having a penis
obsession, whoever wrote this has a sick vocabulary. Sick as in unbelievable.
Like “lissotrichous,” I mean, is that even a word? And “a quasi-compendium of
flaggelating paramecium illuminated by phosphorescent lampyridae…” This stuff’s
way over my head.
There’s ‘Book Two. Criminal
Delusion.’ On page 3, I read, “Busted piston and all, the cannibal rattled
south on his 1979 Honda CBX six-cylinder superbike, with a large order of
McDonald’s fries wedged in his pocket.” Kinda cool, I could understand this
one, I think. I find ‘Book Six. Literary Seclusion.’ Another stack teeters on
the edge of the table: ‘Book Five. Cerebral Occlusion.’ The hell? What’s with
all the ‘shuns?’ There are only three books left in this pile: ‘Book Four.
‘Sexual Intrusion.’ Ah, finally, there’s a sentence I can figure out, even if I
don’t understand every word: “Entry from behind increased my erection to quadrinomial
proportions, but the sound of ‘Macarena’ blasting from the kitchen perniciously
pounded ten minutes of pump and hump into a Sisyphean waste of energy.”
I can’t find Book Seven.
“Here you go, miss.” The clerk
hands me a black book with seven thin lines along the side. The title is ‘Book
Seven. Attribution.’
“I don’t get it,” I say. But my
boyfriend, who’s a whole lot smarter than me, might. At least I’m coming home
with something. I buy the lot and have them gift-wrapped.
The apartment is a ten-minute
drive away. When I pull up to our building and pop the keys in the front door,
my boyfriend is already home.
“Got out of work early, baby,”
he says, and gives me a hungry kiss. “Happy Valentine’s Day.” He presents a
dozen long-stemmed roses to me with a flourish.
I pass him my Barnes & Noble
bag. “I hope you like it. I didn’t know what to get you,” I say. As I put my
roses in a vase, I hear him tearing off the giftwrap.
“Shit!”
My heart sinks. I should’ve
gotten the electric nipple clamps. Or twelve-inch-long Suavé.
“Baby, you outdid yourself this
time, you know that?” He runs over to hug me, and relief washes over me.
“I did good?” I ask, smiling.
He gives me a kiss so deep I can
hardly breathe. When he releases me, he says, “The guy’s a fucking rock star.
We’re trying to land an interview with him, but he’s booked solid for the next
month.”
“I didn’t think people read
books anymore.” Oops.
He raises his eyebrows at me.
“People read this. When they can get their hands on it.” Then he points to
charcoal gray letters on the back cover. So dark I never noticed them: Caliban.
I still don’t get it. “Wasn’t that
the name of some metal song?”
“Metalcore, lust, and Shakespeare.”
He leads me into the bedroom. “Power of words, baby. It means there’s hope for
the world.”
We peel off each other’s
clothes. Even without vibrating nipples and Suavé, I guess there's hope for me,
too. Although those rhinestone handcuffs did look pretty nice.
