“Now, I have something very important to give you,” Sandy said. “You can’t keep this store alive without it.”
“The master set of keys…?”
“Here,” Sandy reached into her purse and handed me a folded up piece of paper. I opened it up and saw some scribbles, numbers, and arrows. It looked like a math equation. I studied the paper, trying to decipher the symbols.
“Honey, it’s the recipe to my punch!”
The punch. Of course. The potion that brought Sandy and Amir together. Was there a recipe for Cheetos to follow?
“Well, I’m going to need some help figuring out this recipe. I want to make sure to get it right. Can we make a batch together?”
“Of course!”
In the past month I had learned all about the erogenous zones in my vagina, which toys women love, and how to host fantastic masturbation sessions. Now I just had to master the art of making moonshine in a bathtub and mixing it with the right kind of juice.
I had come to work that night nervous about running a workshop. Now I’d been handed the keys to a family heirloom of dildos, blow-up dolls, and porn. I thought about all of our customers: the moms, the old single men, the gay and straight couples, the husbands, the virgins. I loved them all. People came to Dreamz to learn about sex, to have sex—with themselves and with others—and I was thrilled to be a part of that. I would sell them porn films, dirty magazines, naughty nurse costumes, and the seven-speed thrusting pink piece of magic that made me find god in my vagina. This store was a very special place—lube and body fluids oozing from the cracks of the walls. I wasn’t going to let Sandy down.
Here dreams would always come true.
16
I woke up around 5:00 P.M., not remembering for a moment where I was or how I’d gotten there. I was used to being awoken by the sounds of my roommates scuffling around as they just got home from work, usually discussing with each other and various random people on the phone about how to get weed. But this evening I awoke to complete silence, in a bed with fluffy white pillows, and what felt like sheets with an insanely high thread count. The memories were coming back to me, visages of Amanda seductively fucking me suddenly invading my head. Amanda. I looked around for her, but it appeared I was alone. The television was on but the volume was muted, showing a loop of a commercial for the hotel I was in with montages of food from the restaurant, families swimming in the pool, and proper adult couples lounging by a fire pit. Sadly, the ad didn’t show anyone getting fucked by a hot dyke with a strap-on. This hotel had no idea what the real magic in this building was.
Was I still welcome here? Should I leave? I sat back and recounted the series of events that happened last night and I couldn’t believe they did. I was hoping I could see her again before she left town. I never actually had a one-night stand, and I’d never slept with a woman. Wasn’t something supposed to happen after this? Wasn’t it proper to at least eat a meal together, or have a kiss good-bye or something?
I stepped into the shower. It was so refreshing to stand in a bathroom that wasn’t littered with so many different people’s toiletries. Just perfectly sized compact bottles of fresh-smelling shampoo and an individually wrapped mini bar of soap. I watched the suds fall down my body, circulate around my nipples, and I scrubbed the soap into the tuft of pubes above my pussy. As I slowly washed away the smell of sex on my body, I heard the door open. I smiled.
“Hey! I hope you don’t mind I used your shower.” I opened the curtain and let the water drip down the sides of the tub.
“It’s okay! I don’t have to pay the water bill here,” Amanda smirked.
She was in her black blazer, with a slightly more casual soft black T-shirt under it. It wasn’t your average cotton shirt; it was thin, and fell on her body in an intentional way. This was a shirt made to stand on its own.
“I’ve got a few hours before I head to the airport, wanna grab some food?”
“We did never actually get that breakfast,” I said.
I thought that was a rather smooth, clever, and cool way to say Oh my god, we had sex, isn’t that crazy! But she wasn’t enthused. Actually, she didn’t respond at all. Maybe she didn’t hear me. I closed the curtain, quickly finished my shower, dried off and dressed, my clothes from yesterday still carrying the scent of arousal.
We hopped in a cab, and went to a restaurant she recommended, a place I have never heard of even though I had lived here my whole life. It had large windows and exposed brick, leather seats, and chandeliers made out of wine bottles.
“I didn’t know we were going somewhere fancy,” I said. “I feel underdressed.” My Converse sneakers and Target blue jeans were just as unfashionable last night as they were now.
“Oh, it’s cool, it’s just a little gastropub I like out here. You’re fine!”
She ordered us drinks with ingredients like “hibiscus” and “jalapeño infused mescal” that sounded like they belonged in a salad, and I did a quick Google search for “gastropub” on my phone. A bar that specializes in serving high quality food was the definition. I don’t get it. Doesn’t that just make it a restaurant? I nodded, smiled, played along, and pretended this was all very routine for me, to drink alcohol with plants in it and sit in leather chairs in “gastropubs.” The drink sure was delicious, though.
“So, did you go and see Sandy today?” I asked.
“Who?”
“My boss! You had said you were going to meet with her.”
“Oh, right! Actually I stopped back there and the store was closed! Are you guys closed Sundays?”
“Ha! No? We’re never supposed to be closed. But it’s just me and Sandy on staff right now so—maybe she had to go somewhere. I try not to think about the store when I’m not there,” I said. That was strange that Sandy wasn’t around. I wondered where she went. Since she was my boss and I was not hers, I guess it literally wasn’t my business.
“So, did you do anything else?” I felt like I was pestering her, but I didn’t really know what else to say and I did genuinely want to know what she was working on.
“I stopped at the Hustler store downtown; they were doing a workshop today and used a lot of our products, so I had to make sure they were being used properly, you know what I mean?”
“I don’t, actually. What do you mean by a workshop?”
“This pretty well-known sex educator—she goes by the name of Dr. Erica—she had a couples’ workshop in the store today mostly targeted toward married people who just don’t know how to have sex anymore. She shows them different toys and how to use them, plus demonstrated new positions on this giant foam thing. Her classes are really informative! She’s written several sex therapy books, and does a ton of lectures.”
I had no idea there were so many kinds of people out there who made their living with dildos and orgasms. So crazy! I’d never considered the educational side before, but it made a lot of sense that there would be sex classes.
“That’s interesting! I never heard of her. Do people actually show up for that?”
“Oh yeah, there were about seventy-five people there. Her newest book had a few chapters on introducing BDSM play to your relationship, so I did some demonstrations on people with our floggers, cuffs, and hog-ties. It works out well! It’s like a cross promotion with her book and the Hustler store.”