"Where are we going?” I was driving downtown to meet my friend Sara for lunch, or so I thought. “The sex toy place?”
“Yeah, haven’t you been there?” Sara said, her voice in and out on her cell.
“Well, I’ve walked by but I never went in…”
“I need to get something there for David and I.”
“But I thought things were going well...”
“They could use a nudge. Meet me there in ten.”
I waited outside, pacing back and forth ostensibly in front of the bagel shop, not the sex toy place, as if someone was taking notes. Minutes later, Sara turned the corner and, laughing, waved me over toward the shop.
Sara strolled from dildo to book to video and back again as if she were choosing the ingredients for dinner. Meanwhile, terrified that I might run into anyone I knew – Former boss! Current boss! Former boyfriend! Current husband! – I just tailed her with a placid expression, mumbling, uh huh, butt balls, now isn’t that something...
The truth was, my inner perv/slut was dying to emerge. My seething doyenne of sensuality, my mistress of lust, my raging fire of – oh, you get the idea – was clawing at her puritanical cage trying to GET OUT. At the same time, she was full of questions. What were butt balls, and they go where?? and moreover, why? Some things were just never meant to happen, to me.
Sara meandered past a hand-scrawled sign that said: “Great Deals on Dongs!” She hefted, held to the light, even smelled, a dozen different dildos: smaller ones like fat lipsticks, scary realistic big-boys out on bail and hunting up trouble, futuristic robo-dildos like missiles, smaller gents who, though slender, were fully at attention, glow-in-the-dark hard plastic gismos with complex attachments for other orifi. She settled on a perky neon green one called “Steve” (they each had names!), a video called Car Wash Sluts and some other purple thing I couldn’t identify (a cock ring? She did say: “anything can be a cock ring, if it goes around a cock.” Another Sara quotable!
I was just about to shrug all this off when I felt someone, or something, burning a dildo-shaped hole in my back. Slowly, I turned around and saw him. His little tag said: “Joey.” Joey! Medium-sized, gray jelly, on the droopy side, but still happy to see me. Only half aroused, but hey, I like a challenge. No fancy attachments, nothing glowing, no flashing lights, no built-in wi-fi. Just: the guy, or I should say: the guy part of the guy. He hung out on the far side of the shelf, just chillin’, while the others tried to crowd him out and kept up the tease with me.
“Look at me!” the ben wa balls called.
“Don’t listen to them,” a giant black dildo purred. “You know I got it goin’ on.”
“Hey, hot stuff!” a painful looking contraption cooed. “Come on over here…I’ll make you forget your own name…”
But they were all wrong. It was as if only Joey and I were in the room; everything else had gone blurry. Nothing else mattered. We shared…something. A smile, a laugh. A connection. And yet, I did nothing (fool!) except follow Sara around like a helpless puppy as she shopped, a vagina-shaped basket draped carelessly over one arm. As she tallied up her wares and we turned toward the exit I glanced back at Joey. My heart ached as I watched a scrawny goth girl pick him up, flop him around a bit, giggle, and finally put him back down on his…head. How humiliating, I thought. Kids can be so cruel!
Months went by. Seasons changed. The sandals went in storage and the warm woollies came out, still; I couldn’t get Joey out of my mind. Was he still sitting there on the shelf, his tender underparts gathering dust as his brothers were snatched up and put to good use? I felt his loneliness, his despair, his ennui.
One snowy afternoon as I was flipping through the local paper I saw the notice: “Close-Out Sale! The Grand Opening, an adult ‘novelty’ store for women in
Forever! Nooooooooo! Forever is such a long time…..Joey……..Joey…Joey…
I looked at my watch. 3:07. I cancelled my four o’clock teeth cleaning, jumped in my car and peeled out, fishtailing in the icy drive. This couldn’t happen: Joey tossed like so much garbage into a remainder bin and then what…recycled? How does one retire an old dildo, anyway? It was too grisly to imagine.
I forced the thought out of my mind as I raced down route 9. In a frenzied attempt to beat the clock I ran red lights, cut people off and gave plenty of finger, knocking off old people at crosswalks and children at school bus stops. I’m sure you understand: THEY WERE IN MY WAY.
At 4:42 I entered the shop. Right away I felt like I couldn’t breathe. It was CROWDED, with men and women. The shelves were nearly empty of whatever they had been full of before. I made no eye contact. I thought a good strategy might be to act like I knew just what I wanted, so I buffaloed my way over to a random corner of the store.
Evidently I landed in some sort of faux-cunnilingus area. I picked up something that looked like a rubber tongue. As I was putting it back it jumped to life, buzzing and undulating in my hand. With a little shriek I tossed it up in the air. Still humming as it landed, it began a sort of tongue-walking movement across the linoleum. People turned and stared. I was sure I would pass out. I picked it up and stuffed it back in the box with the other tongues where it continued buzzing like an angry hornet.
Where the hell were the dildos? I panicked: were they sold out? I couldn’t possibly ask that question…it was 4:52…
Two young women strolled by, both lobes of their ass-shaped shopping basket jammed with videos, books, and creams, a loopy dildo hanging casually out one side. I thought, why can’t I be you? So young and fancy free...
Then, I spotted him. My Joey. He was off to the far side of a corner shelf, his business end flopped over a bit. I sidled over to him. He was a bit scruffy looking, but he was there!
And then…we touched.
I thought maybe I should buy something else to detract attention away from my purchase, like gum. Just came in for the Wrigleys and stumbled on Joey for a friend. But there was no gum in sight. Oh WELL.
I carried him to the counter where a bored looking young woman took him out of my clammy hands and turned him in hers as she searched for the price. I realized as she was doing this that the markdown tags had fallen off and the $44.85 tag remained. She started to ring up that price.
“Excuse me,” I said. “This was marked down…at least twice.”
She gave me the once over and called to someone behind her.
“Candace! I need a price check!”
Nobody came. People turned to ogle the ogre with the freaky purchase. I shrunk down a size. I think my hair was sweating.
“It’s so cold out for this time of year, huh?”
She snapped her gum and stared at me for a beat. “Yeah, well, it’s winter.”
I barked a laugh. “You’re right about that!”
“Candace!!” she yelled out of the side of her mouth.
A cross-eyed twenty-something with dyed-fuscia pigtails and black retro-nerd glasses popped out from a back room. She glanced at Joey and beamed at me.
“Great choith!” she said, lisping slightly.
“Thanks, I – “
“No really, he’s a best theller. Bed Buddy Line. Quality thtuff.” She wrapped him carefully in dark purple tissue paper and tucked him in a brown paper bag.
“Thanks, I – “
“Did you want your retheipt?”
“Sure, I – “
“Here you go, but remember -- he’th a final thale!”
I felt high walking out of the store with Joey in a bag. I had bought my first dildo, yippee-eye-yay!! As I was headed for my car I realized there were more errands I had to run but was terrified I’d space out and leave him somewhere, or he’d drop out of my bag as I reached for my wallet…“Miss, oh Miss! You left your…”
At home, I was alone, sort of. Joey was in his bag in the bottom of my sock drawer. I wondered: should I tell my husband about the new addition to the family? Would he be jealous? Weirded out? Bored? I already felt a bit like I was cheating on him, lusting in my heart as I already had for Joey for almost six months.
I acted normal when he came home. Listened to his day. Folded laundry. Did the dishes.
Lay awake staring into the blackness.
The next day I got as far as lunch. Corn chowder, turkey sandwich, iced tea. Tried to read the paper. Couldn’t. He was all I could think about. Up there, alone in his bag, pining for me, calling my name…
Halfway through the sandwich I reached my breaking point. I ran up the stairs and into his (arms). It was perfect. I got it. I GET IT NOW, I thought, what everyone’s been talking about. In sum: hey, it ain’t bad when you’re “gasping for it” as my British friend Clarice used to say, who now has seven children and is probably done gasping I would wager. It’s true, there was much of Joey that I had to fabricate, but I also noted happily that he didn’t mind if there were others in the room, such as old flames, that guy at the gas station, a former boss, even a couple of celebs and a farm animal or two. NOT the jealous type. Sweet!
There was none of the mess of a real affair: the panic of hub-home-early and hiding the guy in the closet or letting him out the window to run for his life. Always a drag.
Nope, none of that. Joey was a peach. Not the least bit moody. Quiet, but never brooding. Left me alone. Zero emotional demands. Faithful. Not concerned that yes, sometimes I did think about other dildos, or even that I might brush by him in my sock drawer and not even say “hi.” A great listener. Comfortable with the silences between us. And it was always my turn.
Summer came. I had moved him a while back to my Goodwill bag since my sock drawer was sparse in the summer and therefore detection became more likely. It wasn’t until the Goodwill truck was pulling away from the curb that I remembered! Joey – now buried somewhere deep in the piles of stuffed animals, stretched out sweaters, too skinny-skinny jeans, and poly-blend career wear. I ran after the truck, screaming, “Stop, stop!!!” but…he was gone. Gone from the hissing of summer lawns and afternoons at the mall to the roil and boil of a new life somewhere in the city.
Oh, I had my mourning period. I wore black (eye liner) for a few days and got wistful when I thought of him with someone else. But, inevitably, grief fades, the heart heals. Friends call and laughter happens. Also, I got to cruising some new online stores and frankly, there’s something to be said for these new synthetics. Long story short: “Raoul” is in the mail…