At the time, none of us were sure whether she did it because she enjoyed the work or because she wanted to embarrass Duke into opening another account for her. Three years later she was the regional sex toy queen managing five saleswomen. But this was her first party, a sort of trial run, before she launched herself on the public. While Duke was away on a duck-hunting trip, she invited about a dozen old friends to her house for “tapas, margaritas, and sex swing demonstrations.”
Mike practically lay across the driveway to keep me from going. He considered the idea of me buying a vibrator a direct insult to his manhood. He seemed to think the other women in the room would know what his “shortcomings” were based on what I bought. He’d almost talked me out of attending - heck, I was almost apologizing for wanting to go - when he said, “You’re not going to go spend my money on that crap.” I don’t know whether it was the tone of his voice or the “my money” part that pissed me off more, but I shoved about two hundred dollars from my mad money jar into my purse and slipped out of the house.
Imagine sitting in a perfectly respectable living room full of giggling women you’ve known since your Tumble Tots days, drinking from obscene margarita glasses and pretending not to be looking at a hot pink catalog chock-full of things you’ve only seen on the internet. You’re expected to maintain eye contact with a saleswoman as she uses words like “clitoral stimulation” and “nipple tingling.”
“Now, if you want to know whether a toy is powerful enough for you, touch it to the tip of your nose,” Genie managed to say without any irony. “It’s the most sensitive non-erogenous part of the body.”
Despite the fact that several women gamely pressed candy-colored small appliances to their faces, I declined. After several seconds of nose-buzzing, Genie laughed and said that putting the toy to the web between your thumb and forefinger worked just as well. Despite their margarita consumption, our embarrassed, red-nosed party compatriots were not amused at Genie’s attempt at breaking the ice, so she started passing stuff around the room to appease the crowd. I was handed something called the Velvet Slide, a small, blue, curved piece of pliable plastic that, frankly, looked like something a naughty dentist might use. I blocked out Genie’s explanation of where exactly I was supposed to use it as the slender body jolted to life. I glanced around, but no one was looking at me. They were fixated on hardware of their own. I pressed the flat tip to the crook of my hand and felt… tingly. A strange, full awareness in my special places. It was primal and powerful and -…
This must be what gun nuts felt like at the firing range.
I wanted this. I wanted to take this home with me right now. The woman sitting next to me practically had to pry it out of my hands to pass it to the next woman. I leaned over to Genie and whispered. “I think I want that one.”
“Good girl!” she squealed, clapping her hands like an over-caffeinated cheerleader. “Your first vibrator! I’m so proud!”
I laughed, sipping my drink as I was handed a large purple latex wand with elaborate prongs and probes coming off the sides. “Dear Lord!”
“I see we’ve moved on to the heavy artillery,” one of the other guests marveled, her eyebrows raised.
“Is it a tuning fork?” I asked, poking a finger at the little probe on the back. I was beginning to suspect it was meant to go where nothing had ever gone before. “Why are there little Greek gods and goddesses molded on the sides?”
Ever helpful, Genie reached over and turned the dial on “high.”
“What the -” I cried as the vibrator started spinning and twirling like a carnival ride.
“We call it Zeus’s Thunderbolt,” Genie said, winking at me. “It’s one of the most powerful vibrators on the market.”
“Why would anyone want a Greek-themed vibrator?”
She was caught between a grin and grimace and nodded at the offending probe. “Well, you know, the ancient Greeks were into -”
“I’m well aware of what the ancient Greeks were into!” I hissed. I passed the angry-sounding device to the next woman and surrendered to an endless parade of things I could never take home. Flavored body gels, fuzzy handcuffs, some sort of rubber ring that looked like gummy candy from hell. Mike would never want to use any of this stuff. For our first married Valentine’s Day, I bought him a cute little gift basket stuffed with naughty dice, a blindfold, some chocolate body paint. He looked at the little dice inscribed with “nibble” and “nuzzle” and various body parts, then rolled his eyes and asked why we would want to bring gaming equipment into the bedroom.
Genie wrapped up the party by demonstrating how the Slip’N’Slide Vibrating Shower Glove pulsated the Luxuriant Evenings massage lotion into our hands, she explained that this was a great way to wrap up a good round of “water play.” I realized I’d never even had a round of water play. Citing the possibility of slipping or throwing his back out, Mike refused my repeated advances in the shower. Come to think of it, he’d also refused to have sex in our kitchen, the hot tub in the fancy hotel suite we booked for our anniversary, the guest room in my parents’ condo. The only place where he seemed interested in me was in our very own bed.
So when Genie started rubbing the lotion into my hand with the textured buzzing mitten, I burst into tears and ran out of the house. When I came home from Genie’s without so much as edible panties, Mike considered this a confirmation of his skills. He smirked and snarked so much for the next few weeks that I went to Aphrodite’s Palace over in Dalton just to reclaim some dignity. Scary as it was, I bought the less “intrusive” version of Zeus’s Thunderbolt, a scepter-themed gold number called Cleopatra’s Asp, and a pack of D batteries.
The good news was that having regular, albeit solo, orgasms made it much easier to fake them for Mike. Unfortunately, it also meant I knew what I was missing. It was a double-edged sword.
I faked it. A lot. I deserved an Oscar for the performances I put on. Meryl Streep had nothing on my ass. I didn’t know if Mike bought into the theory that I suddenly, without special effort on his part, pushed through my frigidity. I think he was content not to be bothered. I gave the appearance of being satisfied and that meant he didn’t have to try harder.
The thing that really chaps my ass is that now that I’d read the e-mails, I knew that Mike was at least willing to try the new and different with Beebee. On the copy machine. On the couch in the office. In cheap motels. Why could he break his precious sex rules for Beebee and not me? Because I was his wife?
Because he couldn’t think of me that way? Or was I really that bad in bed? I tried to respond in ways that made me feel good, but whenever I asked Mike what he wanted me to do, he’d just say, “That’s fine.” It felt like I was being criticized for not knowing what I was doing, but refused adequate instruction. It was like high school algebra.
Now he had to search for his own suits. And I was alone.
What would I do now? What could I do? I had no work experience. I wasn’t trained for much besides journalism. And at this point, my skills were a little rusty. Besides, newspaper editors probably preferred writing about me than hiring me to write for them. The idea that I might not be able to support myself was depressing and terrifying. I’d never had to worry about money before. And the idea of going to my parents to ask for help made my stomach turn. It was bad enough driving my mother’s car.
I leaned back, fluttering my feet through the cool water. At least this way I could figure out what I wanted, what could make me happy, without worrying how it would affect everybody else in my life.
Behind me, I heard the door to my neighbor’s cabin open and Wolverine stepped out. (I refused to call him Lefty, even in my head.) Beer bottle in hand, he tipped his face up to watch bright blue and green light from the fireworks splashing across the sky. It took him a few minutes to realize I was there. He nodded, not a friendly gesture, really, just acknowledgment of my presence. I nodded back, then turned my face back to the light show.
Independence. Making the choice to be alone. I only hoped it didn’t make me into a vaguely threatening, brooding psycho.
A few days later, I stood at the end of that same dock, considering my mother’s cautionary tale about Natalie Wood.
I didn’t usually swim after dark, or for that matter, in water not surrounded by concrete. But swimming the lake had been a tradition since we were kids. Also, it was mid-July, the humidity level was somewhere around “sauna,” and I had a window air-conditioning unit from 1978.
I sighed. Screw it. I wasn’t drunk. Christopher Walken was nowhere in sight. I would be fine.
