Lauren Holmes - Barbara the Slut and Other People

“Wow, this is nice,” I said.

“I know, right?” said Chad. “I mean I don’t know, but, you know.”

“Ha,” I said, “right.”

There were a million dildos in a million colors, in sizes from baby carrot to miniature log.

Chad introduced me to the people working at Making Love, and said I would be working at Desert Hearts by myself, and if I could work five days a week, one of the Love girls would fill in on the other two days. Eunice was a friend of the owner, Pamela, and was just filling in until they found someone more permanent.

“And I would like that to be you!” said Chad. “I have to run this by Pamela, but I know she will think you are just adorable!”

“Great,” I said.

• • •

When I got home I took a shower and made stuffed peppers and waited for Danny for a while, then ate the peppers by myself and watched a two-hour dating show. My dad called to bother me so I told him I was going to work at a sex toy store and he said he didn’t have time for my jokes, and to call him back when I was ready to get serious about my life.

When Danny got home at ten I told him I might have gotten a job.

“Where?” he said.

“At this store in the Mission,” I said. “A sex toy store.”

“Ha,” he said.

“No really,” I said.

“Really?” he said, looking worried.

“I can still look for law jobs,” I said, to make him feel better. “But this way I can make some money and have some interim work to put on my resume.”

“I don’t think you can put that on your resume,” he said. “Do you even know anything about sex toys?”

“Yes,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I do. I learned a lot today. And I have that vibrator.”

“That blue dolphin thing?” he said. “Has that ever had batteries in it?”

“So?” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “Well, I hope you get the job if you want it.”

“Thanks baby,” I said. “I want it.”

I guess thinking about the toys made Danny feel sexy, because he got me started when we got into bed, and we had sex for the second time in San Francisco. The first time we were exhausted from moving, and giddy because we had had too many beers to celebrate. Then when Danny started working and it didn’t happen again, I started worrying that it was the beginning of the end, and in twenty years when our kids claimed we only had sex twice, once for each of them, it would be more or less true.

But that night after Desert Hearts and Eunice and Chad, it was as good as it had ever been. I choked myself up thinking how grateful I was to have someone who knew my body by heart and could get me off in two minutes or two hours, and especially how grateful I was when it was two hours. When we finally went to sleep, I had a dream that I worked at the store and I had to wear a tiny dildo necklace.

• • •

The next afternoon Chad called to say I got the job, and he wanted to know if I could work the next day. The next day was Saturday but I said okay. He asked me if I thought I remembered enough from Making Love to come up with some talking points for the harness and the dildo collection. I said yes and had a feeling that I was going to spend the next twenty-four hours reading about lesbian sex and sex toys on the internet. He said he would meet me at Desert Hearts at noon to train me to use the register and some other store-specific stuff, like the sex machine.

“Great,” I said.

When Danny got home I told him I got the job and was going to start tomorrow. He said it was fine; he had a lot of work to do anyway.

“And maybe I’ll come visit you,” he said.

“Oh god,” I said. “Please don’t.”

Later he caught me printing out pictures from the dildo website, which I was planning to use for flash cards to help me learn the names of the different models. He laughed at me and I laughed too. He kissed my neck and I felt the hairs there stand up. I followed him to the back of the apartment, hopeful, but by the time I finished brushing my teeth he was asleep.

• • •

On Saturday I rode to Desert Hearts and Chad tried to teach me how to use the register, which was a computer with the most complex software I had ever used. I was finally able to make a successful transaction around two in the afternoon, and Chad sighed a big sigh of relief and brought in some books from his car, put them on the table at the front of the store, and told me he was leaving.

Two women who had been whispering in the dildo section asked me for help. They had picked out a fabric harness and were trying to decide on a dildo, and wanted to know what other colors “Buck” came in. I told them he came in three skin tones, vanilla, caramel, and chocolate. And I asked them if they had seen our exclusive harness and gave them the whole speech about the virtually seamless leather and the internal ring and everything. I didn’t think they would go for it since it cost twice as much as the one they picked out, but they did. They said they were glad they talked to me because they weren’t thinking of it as an investment before. When I turned around Chad was still there, folding shirts. The women picked the caramel Buck, and I checked them out with no problems.

When they were gone Chad said, “See, you are smart! That was just great! You’re going to do great. The only thing is don’t call the dildos ‘he,’ okay? Most lesbians don’t really like that.”

“Oops,” I said, “okay.” That made sense but it really seemed like a stretch to imagine Buck as female or sexless. Buck had a very realistic-looking head, and veins up and down the shaft. Buck didn’t have balls, but several of the other dildos in that collection did. And Buck was circumcised, but some of the others weren’t. I could see calling the dildos in the other, smoother, more abstract collections “she,” but when I see a head, veins, and wrinkled balls, I think “he.” I wondered who was designing these things and why they thought lesbians wanted penis replicas.

Chad left and later called to see if I could work the next day so that I could meet Pamela and have her show me around.

• • •

Before Pamela came in I saw her parking her motorcycle in front of the store and taking her helmet off. She looked like Eunice, but heavier and without the rat tail, and when she came in I couldn’t tell if she had a really kind face or a tired face. She gave me a once-over and a terse smile and I decided on tired face.

“I’m Pam,” she said. “Thanks for working on such short notice.”

She explained everything to me again, looking at me skeptically the whole time. In the middle of the harness speech she looked at me and said, “Have you ever actually used a harness?”

“Yes,” I said. “Of course. I’ve used yours. I mean the Desert Hearts one. My girlfriend and I got it when we were up here last year.”

“Oh really?” said Pam. She looked pleased but didn’t smile. “Do you like it?”

“Yeah we love it,” I said. “I’ve never worn anything more comfortable.”

“Huh,” she said. “Great.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have said I was the one who wore it. I guess if I was a lesbian I wouldn’t be a top. But I figured I would be willing to at least try it.

I listened through the harness speech and the dildo speech and the lube speech, and by the time we got to the vibrators I started to get impatient and started cutting her off. Like when she said, “The Eroscillator is the number-one-rated stimulator,” I said, “It was engineered in Switzerland and university-tested in the U.S. There is no better vibrator.”

“Good,” she said. “I guess Chad went over everything.”

When Pam got back on her motorcycle and rode away, I tried out all of the vibrators on my nose like she told me to tell the customers to do, but I wasn’t sure that gave me a good sense of how they would feel on my clit. I did like the Eroscillator though. There were seven attachments and I cleaned off the Grapes and Cockscomb attachment with a Clorox wipe and massaged my face with it. At the end of the day, I bought the Eroscillator with my employee discount. Danny laughed about it at first, but then we had sex and we used it, and it made him feel good and it made me feel like I was on another planet.