“I feel like I need to send her a fruit basket or something.” He laughs. “My team is obsessed with those cupcakes. And to think it all started because you ladies realized how much adulting truly sucks.”
I take another drink. “I’m pretty sure that’s how Charlie’s Angels formed.”
Before I can turn the conversation to the fantastic parts of his day, he turns in his stool to face me, leaning one elbow on the bar. “Kat, in the interest of keeping this second drink dream alive, I’m going for gold here. I have a confession.”
I make my eyes go wide. “Oh, my. Okay.” Turning dramatically in my seat, I place my hands in my lap. “I’m ready.”
“Yes, I did change my shirt because I was meeting you for drinks. And I actually let myself fret about it for a while, too. So when you noticed, I almost fell out of my chair. And I ordered what you were drinking when I came in because I was so nervous, I honestly in that moment forgot what it is I normally drink. And, Kat, I have been buying from your shop for five months, and every week for five months, I’ve thought about how I might someday work up to asking you out. When you said someone was getting married at the shop the other day, for a second I thought maybe it was you and I’d missed my window.” He grins at me, and I take special notice of his white-but-not-too-white teeth. “Now, I’m not saying I’d ever anticipated those particular circumstances bringing this date about, but I’m glad they did.” He holds his hands up in front of him. “Our glasses are almost empty. So. That’s my Hail Mary for a second drink.”
I tilt my head to the side as he takes the last sip from his glass, setting it back down on his napkin with an ominous clink.
This is wrong. Ben isn’t here because he’s emotionally confused by his significant other dating someone new. He’s not here because he’s debating whether or not to try practice sex with me. He’s not here on the whim of a bad mood and a semi-joking idea.
Here’s here because he likes me. Because he has been thinking for some time of being here with me.
I feel genuinely sick to my stomach with guilt at the thought of what’s unfolded in this bar. I want to come clean with him about the reality of my current romantic entanglements—but more than that, selfishly, cowardly, I want to keep feeling what it’s like to be on a first date with Ben Cleary.
“That was a pretty solid Hail Mary,” I offer.
“I went for it,” he says. “Although, to sweeten the pot, I will say, were there to be a second drink, I would also be willing to throw in dinner, because I’m a gentleman like that. And because I’m hungry.” He narrows his eyes at me. “Wait. Unless...you don’t study people about their food the way you do with their drinks, do you?”
I shake my head. “God, no. That’s not okay. Drinks are drinks. Food is for eating and magic and shutting the hell up. You don’t mess with food.”
“See, now I know we can be friends.”
I gesture to the bartender, and Ben’s lip twitches ever so slightly. I take a breath and say, “We’ll take two Guinnesses.”
* * *
All in all, this was a weird day.
Back in my apartment, I set the two ridiculously large boxes of sexual therapy devices on my coffee table.
It’s incredibly late, and I have to be up at dawn to be at the shop, but I’ve got only twenty-nine days to beat this deadline. Shannon’s right; this is never going to work if I keep finding reasons to put it off. It’s my deadline, and I need to bloody well stick with it.
I open the boxes and start laying out the bounty. Damn, the gals really spared no expense. I think they’ve overestimated the actual number of vaginas I have.
Flipping through the Encyclopedia Vaginica Shannon printed off for me, I realize that I remember most of these instructions from my doctor. Start slowly, be gentle, go small, work your way up. The vagina is a muscle, I need to retrain it, yada yada.
Okay, so this isn’t so bad. Shannon managed to get through this in three months, and that was with two tiny humans at home demanding all her attention, so I can totally do this in four weeks. It’s like if I tore my rotator cuff or something. I’d have to do all these stretching exercises to get it back into fighting shape. Not that I want my special to be fighting anyone.
Special. Damn it, Liz.
“Make this a calm and relaxing experience. Play soothing music, burn scented candles, take calming breaths.”
I don’t have any scented candles, and I wonder if Netflix would count in place of calming music?
I take a deep breath. I can do this. It says this should be a twice-daily routine, but I’m wondering if I can work it in at bedtime and before work. Brush teeth, wash face, train special.
I grab an armful of the therapy gear from the boxes and walk them into my bedroom. Tossing them on my bed, I start changing for sleep.
I had a good time with Ben. While I feel like an absolute monster of a person for not being more open about the realities of my life right now, I’ve justified the omissions by reminding myself that most people don’t unload their entire life stories on the first date.
Jammies on, I head to the bathroom to scrub my face and teeth. I think back to Ben’s smile. He really does have nice teeth. And that jaw, though. Seriously. It’s criminally defined.
As I give my molars a good once-over, I can’t help but wonder what I’ve been thinking by ignoring such a huge part of my life for two years. While it’s great that my militant drive to succeed has gotten the shop into pretty solid shape, doing so at the complete expense of my romantic life seems a little extreme.
I don’t remember the last time Ryan and I went out for drinks just to go. Sometimes we go for dinner out, and maybe even a movie on Saturdays, but for the most part, we have been in stuck in the deepest rut ever. Like, natural sunlight can’t reach the depths of this rut.
And it’s been nearly four years. Two of which have been wonky as hell and entirely without physical intimacy. Four years in a relationship is an eternity in your twenties.
But I’m about to dance out of my twenties. And two years of special solitude is more than long enough, damn it. So I’m getting my nethers in line, and then things will get back to awesome with Ryan, and we are about to land a high-check contract. I’m going to be one of those women who has it all.
But right now, all I want is some Doctor Who—and to figure out what the hell a dilator actually is, so I can go to sleep.
Okay. This thing says five to ten minutes—depending on my comfort level—lots of lubricant, then yay sleep.
I’m trying really hard to not think about how odd this all is. But it’s medicinal. Medicinal sex toys. That’s something I could totally explain to my landlady if she came strolling in.
The thing I bought at the shop with Butter was too, uh, sizable, so I’ll have to start smaller. Looking at the pile of items, I feel like I’m in the middle of a hidden camera show. Any minute now, my mom will come bursting in with a camera crew and the pope.
Those must be the calming thoughts the instructions talked about.
Relaxing environment. I grab my remote and queue up an episode of the Tenth Doctor. I shut the lights off and take a deep breath, pushing all thoughts of Ryan and Alice and contracts out of my mind. I ignore the fact that I’m pawing at the protective wrap on a bottle of water-based lubricant my oldest friend and coworkers had overnight delivered to our bakery.
I choose the smallest rubber device, which is innocuously flesh-colored, and take a breath. Here we go.
This isn’t so bad. The papers said to try thirty seconds at first. I start counting in my head.
I’m not a prude by any means, but something about this feels impossibly awkward