Summer Heacock - The Awkward Path To Getting Lucky

“You sweet summer child,” Butter says, shaking her head. “So, Kat, you do that, and then you’ll know!”

“Unfortunately,” I reply, “I’m lacking the appropriate stock for these experiments. That’s not exactly my style.”

I’m getting the side-eye from Shannon. “Really? You’ve been boinkless for that long and you don’t have any...gear?”

I scoff, “What? I’m more of a right-click-your-mouse than power-up-your-hard-drive kind of gal. So?”

Liz makes a noise, and I’m certain she’s going to faint.

“Sweetie,” Shannon says, putting her hand on Liz’s shoulder, “if you want to leave this conversation, I swear none of us will hold it against you in the slightest.”

“No!” Liz insists. “I’m okay! I just...my friends don’t normally talk about this stuff. But I’m fine, really! I want to help.”

Shannon pats her on the back. “Teamwork. I admire that.” She turns back to her phone. “When I was doing my own therapy at home, I had a stash of things I could use that weren’t that far off from what one might use to ‘power their hard drive,’ as you say, so maybe you can kill two birds with one dildo.”

Butter snorts into her coffee and starts choking spectacularly.

“You did not just say that.” I shake my head.

“Pumpkin, I’ve got two kids. More people have seen my vagina with a human being coming out of it than I care to admit. I haven’t peed alone in nine years. I have no shame. This stuff happens. When I had my gallbladder out last year, you were right there bringing us food and watching the kids and manning the shop and being the best damn friend in the world to me and mine. We don’t pick our challenges. You’re like family and I love you—you have a problem and I’m here to help. If that help involves dildos, bring it on. I’ve fucking got this.”

This is certainly our liveliest employee meeting to date.

3

After the shop closed for the night, Butter and I hit up the Naughty Market over on Fourth Street. Then I raced home and, with the help of a newly acquired phallic device, made the discovery that my lady bits were indeed still on the fritz.

This did not start my evening with Ryan under an umbrella of joy.

We have standing date nights on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. If we find some extra free time, we try to meet up more, but working eighty-ish hours a week at the shop doesn’t grant me a tremendous amount of time off. Having the together moments scheduled in advance helps make sure I put the piping bag down and remember to have a life. Well, on those three days of the week, anyway.

With a tiny gray storm cloud floating over my head, I carefully stow away all evidence of my experiment in my nightstand before I set to prepping for Ryan’s arrival.

I’m feeling uncomfortably electrified about seeing him tonight. For a moment, it reminds me of the jitters from the way back parts of our relationship. When we had a date and I was excited to get ready before he picked me up.

This isn’t that. There’s an anxiety brewing inside me, knowing it’s time to shout until we are both fully aware that the emperor has no clothes and a broken thang.

The more the determination churns in my stomach, the clearer it becomes to me how this has carried on for two years. There’s a comfort in our consistency. Our routine may not be dripping with platitudes and romance, but it’s ours, and it’s soothing.

I toss my flour-covered shirt and jeans into my hamper and change into a nearly identical outfit, sans flour. Taking a look at myself in the mirror, a wave of panic flashes through me.

I quickly yank off my T-shirt and toss it back into a drawer. I have to dig pretty far into the Narnia region of my closet, but I finally find something that’s more blouse than T-shirt. At the very least, the cut of the neckline implies I’m aware I have breasts, which is a big step up, really.

Walking up to the mirror in my bathroom, I pull my hair out of my uniform ponytail and grab a brush. Even my hair is efficient. I keep my chocolate-hued locks just long enough that I can whisk them into a ponytail at any height on my head, but not long enough that I have to put in the effort of actually styling them every day.

Plus, when I let my damp hair dry tied back, it finishes all smooth and shiny, if slightly dented. Otherwise I’d have to use blow-dryers and serums, and there’d be frizz to tackle, and I’d just rather spend that twenty minutes sleeping.

As I brush out my hair, a tiny part of my brain wonders when it was that I stopped putting forth any effort in the looks department. I’m expecting some sort of vagina miracle, but I can’t even be bothered to make an effort to look nice for our nights together?

Maybe that’s what’s missing. My vagina misses the joy of getting all dolled up for a night out.

A slightly louder part says it was probably right around the time sex started feeling like a below-the-belt root canal sans anesthetic.

When did Ryan give up?

Did he, though? Is he still putting forth all the best boyfriend maneuvers, but I’m too strung out from work to even notice?

We’ve fallen into a comfortable groove the last few years. Our date nights are simple, but nice. He brings over takeout, we sit together and talk about our jobs and life and the world that happens around us that I rarely get to take the time to notice. We curl up together on the couch with a couple glasses of wine and watch Netflix or a movie or just keep chatting.

It’s nice. These nights are the least stressful parts of my week. I love my time with Ryan, and I can’t imagine my life without these moments of Zen with him.

But the more I analyze us, the more I realize there’s nothing here that screams “relationship.” I could be doing these exact things with Shannon or Butter and have that same feeling of soothing calm.

As much as I’m racking my brain here, I can’t find the intimacy in what we’ve been doing. We have a familiar kiss hello when he arrives, we sit beside each other at the table and on the couch, but we don’t cuddle or make out anymore. I’m not even sure we touch each other much.

A wave of sadness washes through my entire body. I miss touching. I miss the feeling of warmth from being physically close to someone. I miss the feeling of skin against mine. Cuddling up next to him used to be one of my favorite things.

I remember when things started tanking in the nookie department, Ryan took a noticeable step back from almost all apparent physical intimacy. When I asked him why, he said he didn’t want me to feel like he was pressuring me for sex I couldn’t even have.

At the time, I thought that was really sweet, and I appreciated his consideration.

Now I’m just feeling guilty. Like I made him afraid to try to hold my hand. And if I’m being completely honest, I’m also a little resentful, because I really miss that part of our relationship.

I hear my front door open and the familiar sounds of Ryan making his way through my living room to set take-out bags on the counter in the kitchen.

I pull the brush through my hair one more time, set it back down by the sink and head out to greet him.

I peek my head out of my bedroom and watch as he starts setting out containers and cutlery on the counter. He seems right at home.

If I’d agreed to us living together, I wonder if we would have lived here? We never made it that far into the discussion. He’d been hinting at cohabitation for a month or two before our second anniversary, and I liked the idea a lot, but with the onset of trouble in Vagville, I’d always sort of dodged the conversation.

I take a moment and stare at my boyfriend of nearly four years. He’s lovely, really. His green eyes are calm and content as he pops the lid off what looks like chicken makhani.