Late one night she dug through the small green bag with the brocaded angels that lived next to her bed under her night table. Much to her chagrin she discovered that the toys in it no longer captured her fancy… or her orgasm for that matter. She was tired of vibrators. Her favorite one had ceased to vibrate about a year ago. What she really wanted was a dildo. Something large enough to feel good but small enough that the fact she was still a virgin wouldn’t be an issue. And something silicone. Sex for one shouldn’t require a condom, and jelly rubber did. It was time for a trip to that certain store in San Francisco. Which meant it was time for a call to her partner in crime who always made that trip with her.
As the two of them walked down Seventeenth Street a few days later, her nerve began to crumble. She wasn’t quite sure what she wanted, and to her best recollection the dildos were not out on display, but were in drawers behind the cash register. She pointed this out to him and said she didn’t know if she could go through with it. Resolve was easy when she was alone in the dark in her room. But faced with the prospect of walking into a sex shop and asking to see their rubber cock collection, she was more than slightly overwhelmed. But he, being the kind of friend he was, the kind who could always manage to put her at ease with a joke and a smile, he looked at her and said “Awww. Does somebody need Daddy to ask about the dildo?” She dissolved into giggles and turned the corner where he opened the door and she stepped into a different world.
She was always amazed at how comfortable she felt in this place. She who blushed at the very thought of buying a sex toy, felt like this was a place like any other. The windows obscured the view from the street, but not by painting the windows black. The windows had a mossy green frost, which almost gave her a feeling of being underwater. She browsed the selection for a while, picking things up and putting them back, completely at ease because everyone was there for the same reason she was and no one paid any attention to her. Catching his attention every once in a while, she asked him the questions she couldn’t bring herself to ask the salespeople; she finally decided on her purchases and headed to the registers. She knew the drill- it was blessedly easy and fuss-free. They’d ring up her items, offer her batteries, check off the pages she should read in the booklet they gave with every purchase instructing her how to care for her new toys, and she’d be on her way.
But today her salesperson didn’t seem to know that drill. The book was rung up and placed in the bag, she was offered batteries, and then the two toys were rung up and placed back on the counter.
“No no,” she thought. “Those go in the bag, not back on the counter.”
The salesgirl then proceeded to explain her purchases to her, waving a hand over each item as she talked about it. No! Oh no this wasn’t the way it went! But the salesgirl kept talking…
“Now, both of these toys can be inserted vaginally, but we don’t recommend this one (indicates the hard plastic vibrator) for use anally…”
“Oh, she did not just mention anal sex!” she thought, beginning to panic and glancing over at him as he stood next to her. He smiled at her as the salesgirl kept talking.
“Okay, so you’ll want to read the pages on Jelly rubber toys, vibrators- it’s recommended that you store the batteries outside the toy to extend the life of the batteries and of the vibrator itself- let’s see, silicone toys… oh, and anal toys, since you can use this one (indicates the silicone dildo) anally.”
She glanced at him as the word anal came up again. She had only recently become comfortable with anything concerning anal sex in her own life, and someone else talking about it out loud with such nonchalance was just too much. He smiled sympathetically as she looked at him in abject terror and then he did it. He opened his mouth and utterly betrayed her.
“Excuse me, but I have to ask, why can’t you use that other one anally?” Leave it to a gay man to want to know why… She speculated that it “was hard plastic and could hurt” but the salesgirl corrected her, saying that it wasn’t recommended because it didn’t have as flared base…
“When your hands are all lubed up, which, if you’re playing anally you can never have enough of, your hands can be slippery and you wouldn’t want to lose it inside if it slips out of your grip. If that happens in the vagina the cervix will stop it and you can just reach in after it… but the anal tract goes all the way up to the mouth.” At this point the salesgirl notices that all the color has drained from her face. “Don’t worry, it’s not like the toy would go that far, but it can require a trip to emergency”
At this point, she wanted nothing more than to fall through the floor, just to escape this incredibly helpful salesgirl. Finally she was handed her credit card slip for signature, and handed the bag so she could leave. Emerging onto the noisy street was jarring after the gentle green tranquility. She turned the bag so that the logo was against her leg, then placed the bag logo down on the backseat of the car, and prayed the valet wouldn’t snoop while they were at dinner. A dinner, incidentally, that he paid for because he knew she had just spent a lot more than she’d planned.