Sunday morning started out like any other. Manny and I rose around the same time we usually did on the weekends: 9:30 a.m. We would both brush our teeth and head downstairs to our usual routine of coffee, breakfast and the morning paper.
“Hey, tell me how the party was last night,” Manny said putting his section of the paper down on the table.
His attention was completely on me. I didn’t know where to start. Everything felt like a dream in the bold light of morning.
“I had a good night actually,” I said. “It was fun. I learned a lot too.”
“Really?”
What did he mean by “Really?”
Did he know more than he was letting on?
Was he being sarcastic?
Did he know that I had never had an orgasm?
If he did know, was now the time to tell him?
I decided that wouldn’t be nice. It’s simply not something one says over scrambled eggs and toast.
“Yeah I did learn a whole lot.” I smiled. “Nothing Mahjong doesn’t already know of course.”
Manny burst out laughing. “She could write a book I bet.”
“Well she wasn’t as surprised as me by some of it. The consultant was a really nice woman. She’s been doing the parties for fifteen years. She was really nice. I liked her a lot.”
“I guess I wasn’t picturing your night being an information session.”
“What were you picturing?” I wondered if his vision was anywhere close to what I had in my mind before I got there.
Manny flashed his big smile. “A bunch of girls in their pyjamas hitting each other with pillows.”
He smiled more broadly.
I crossed my arms and furrowed my brow until his smile vanished and I knew the image of young, chesty women in lingerie flailing linens at each other was out of his mind.
“Sorry to disappoint Manny but it wasn’t anything like that at all.”
“Hey, what’s the deal with that thing you showed me last night?” he said. “How much was that?”
I suddenly felt a pang of both guilt and fear. Would he be mad when he found out how much money I had spent? Should I really have bought that much stuff? In the sober light of day I wasn’t even sure I could remember what some of it was for.
“I got that for you,” I said, praying he wouldn’t ask me to show him the receipt.
“I don’t think I got a good look at it last night.”
Was he trying to be coy or was he using the toy as an excuse to have sex? I couldn’t read his expression.
“I can show you,” I said, sounding more like a teacher than I wanted to. He shrugged and followed me upstairs.
Our sex routine had become as regimented as the pillow-at-the-foot-of-the-bed habit. It was always the same. One of us undressed, then the next undressed, we would slip under the covers, kiss and touch, usually in the same places with unvaried pressure and for approximately forty seconds a body zone, until the act itself was complete.
With all the new information floating around in my head and my burgeoning desire to make things different, I felt compelled to strike while the loins were hot and not settle for tried and true.
“Wait here,” I said.
I left our bedroom and headed towards the storage room. I rummaged through the black bag and removed the bottle of lubricant and toy cleaner I vaguely recalled was supposed to be used with the pink sleeve. While foraging through the rest of the bag I reached into the tiny sac that had my vibrator neatly enclosed inside and decided to leave it where it was for the time being.
I wasn’t ready yet.
I closed the bag, took the two bottles in my hands and headed back to the bedroom.
When I re-entered our room, Manny was lying on the bed absently tapping his toes against the bed railing. It wasn’t exactly the kind of sex scene I had imagined as I told him I should probably clean the toy first before we used it. He nodded in agreement and then promptly began to tell me about his plans to play squash with his buddy later that afternoon.
I grabbed the pink sleeve from where it was sitting on the night-stand and took it into the bathroom removing the plastic wrapping while Manny carried on a conversation he could have easily had without me. He was mentioning something about one of his squash buddies cheating in a game and I half-heartedly responded with the odd “Oh you don’t say,” here and the occasional, “You must be kidding!” there.
Was this what all couples do when they play with sex toys – make idle conversation and pretend not to feel awkward and a bit foolish?
Was this how they do it in porn?
I sprayed the cleaner on the outside of the toy and on the inside of it. When I put my fingers inside the pink sleeve it suddenly became very clear what it was for. I felt a strange tingle of excitement.
What had Mahjong called it at the party? A pink pocket? A pizza pocket? No! A pocket pussy! That was it! It was all coming back to me.
I started to get excited.
I poured warm water down the centre of the toy to make sure all the cleaner was washed out. I opened the bottle of lubricant and placed a small bubble of it on my fingers shoving it inside the toy. I giggled feeling the rubber react to my slippery touch.
Manny was still talking about how he got jilted out of ice time when I walked out of the bathroom with my hands behind my back. He must have noticed my expression because he eventually stopped talking and waited for me to say something.
“Look what I have,” I said slowly bringing the soft pink toy to his view. His mouth twisted and I couldn’t read his expression. “Do you know what it’s for?”
The truth is I was hoping he would tell me so I wouldn’t have to figure it all out myself.
“I think so,” he said, slowly getting up from the bed and walking towards me. “Is that what you showed me last night? It’s pink.” Before he could ask me how much it cost, which might threaten the light-heartedness of the mood, and before I lost my nerve completely, I pushed him back against the bed away from me and the toy. He willingly lay down and propped his arms behind his head, making himself comfortable.
I opened the buttons of his pyjama top. He unfolded his arms long enough to free himself and then promptly returned them back behind his head. I was determined to stay in control even though I had no idea what I was doing. Unfortunately, my cell phone was too far away to text Mahjong to ask her what I should do. I figured stopping every ten minutes to get instruction by text would probably spoil the mood.
Once Manny’s pyjama bottoms were off, it was obvious to me that there was much work to do. I looked down at his semi-erect penis, looking like a beleaguered snake in a charmer’s basket too tired to get up and wave to the tourists. It reminded me of a Discovery program I saw on India when I was younger, with one major difference: I didn’t have a cinnai flute, I had lubricant.
I took Manny’s penis in my hands and gently stroked it with the same rhythm as I had so many times before. I placed one knee between Manny’s legs and the other against his outer thigh. I reached for the lubricant. When I squirted it onto my hands I was shocked to feel how cool it was.
I knew instinctually the snake would retreat back