“WHY IS this your favorite sex toy shop?” Penny asks as we climb the stairs from the subway to the sidewalk. Someone shoulders in between us to hustle down the stairs. I grab her hand again and pull her closer.
“It’s where I lost my virginity,” I say as I lead the way around the corner.
She narrows her eyes. “Seriously?”
I laugh at her expression. “Just teasing. That was at Emma Cotham’s pool party. They have a nice massage oil here.”
“Only the best for your dick?”
“You’re starting to get me.” At the right storefront, I pull open the door. Dark Allure is tiny, a scrap of a shop sandwiched between an Indian restaurant and a nail salon. I could get the oil I like to use when I jerk off somewhere more convenient, but I enjoy browsing the aisles. People get up to some seriously freaky shit. The first display is tame, just a row of nicely sized butt plugs, but around the corner, I know there are some metal chastity devices. “Why don’t we make it into a game? Cheesy or cringe?”
She gets my drift right away, a smile breaking out on her face. “You’re on.”
“Sweetheart?” I say just before I lose her in the aisles.
She looks over her shoulder. “Yeah?”
“And pick out whatever you want. But choose wisely, because whatever you get, I’m using on you later.”
She flushes, but holds my gaze for a moment before hurrying down the aisle.
I poke around the front of the store, which has some costumes for roleplaying, and grab the jasmine-and-bergamot scented oil off the shelf. I need to introduce Penny to it sometime soon. I spot her looking through a bin of cock rings and grab a fox tail butt plug before heading in her direction. She’s so engrossed in looking at the different options that she doesn’t notice me until I dangle the tail in front of her face.
“Cooper!” she says, giggling. “What even is that?”
“It’s almost Halloween. You could be a fox; you have the hair for it.”
“Ugh, no. That is the literal definition of cringe.”
I gesture to the cock ring in her hand. It’s hot pink, and the tag says it’s made by a company called The Big O. “That vibrates, nice. Cheesy?”
“I can imagine someone buying it for their husband because things have gotten stale.” She spots a pair of fluffy handcuffs and holds them out. “Wait, this is even cheesier. Whenever I think about porn, this is what comes to mind.”
“Never watched any?”
She shakes her head. “I’ll stick to my spicy romance novels, thanks.”
“Weird.”
“I’d rather imagine the guys looking exactly like I want them to.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”
She smiles sweetly. “Don’t you wish you knew. Where are all the dildos?”
“Wall in the back.”
She goes to look, but I hang back, distracted by a mannequin wearing a leather corset. That would look hot as fuck on Penny. If she added heels and put her hair up? I think I might have a heart attack.
I notice a rack of videotapes—the old-fashioned kind, not even DVDs—filled with vintage porn, and rifle through the bunch. Some of the ladies on the covers are hot enough to make me wish I had a way to play them. The one redhead in the bunch doesn’t hold a handle to my Red, though. There’s a tripod on the shelf above them, a little one that could sit atop a dresser to facilitate a homemade sex tape. I grin as I grab it. Does this count as cheesy or just cringe? I’ve never given much thought to how many bad homemade sex tapes there must be in the world, but I’m sure the answer is way too many.
I hold up the tripod as I make my way to the wall of dildos in the back. Penny has a pink box tucked underneath her arm, and she’s peering at the vibrators with a serious expression on her face.
“Hey, Pen. Sex tape? Cheesy or cringe?”
She glances over. I wiggle it, but instead of laughing like she did with the fox tail butt plug, her expression shutters. “Put that down.”
“I think it’s cringe, but I guess if—”
“Put it down,” she says again, cutting me off.
“You okay?” I say as I set the tripod back on its display table.
She bites her lip. Her whole body looks stiff, like someone just gave her an electric shock. I’m not sure what the hell I did, but clearly it was something, because she’s wound tight. She holds up the pink box. “I’m going to get this.”
“Penny.”
She shoulders past me, heading for the register.
I catch up in a hurry, pulling my wallet out. “I’ve got it.”
She looks up at me. “This is the expensive one.”
“Good.” I hand the credit card to the cashier, who glances at me with interest before scanning the bar code.
“You have excellent taste,” she says. “I wish I had a boyfriend to buy me fancy vibrators.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Penny says automatically. “He’s my…”
“Sexual educator,” I say as I put the oil on the counter too.
She rolls her eyes. “No.”
“What? It’s apt. I have more experience than you and I’m showing you the ropes. Like a teacher.”
She covers her face with her hand. “I can’t bring you anywhere.” She peeks at the cashier. “He almost said the same thing to his brother at lunch.”
“Wow,” the cashier says, glancing between the two of us. “That’s kind of freaky.”
“And now apparently I can’t shut up, because I’m telling you,” Penny adds. She glares at me. “Why do you make me so chatty?”
“I guess you’re just comfortable with me,” I say. I think it’s the truth, but unfortunately, that makes her wrinkle her nose. What about the tripod made her so jumpy? Did she ever try to film something? That doesn’t sound like her; she just admitted she’s never watched porn. She’s a freak in the sheets, sure, but she doesn’t strike me as the type to want people besides her partner to see her pleasure. This is supposed to be a fun day, though, so when I spot a little remote-controlled vibrator, I snag it from the shelf and slide it over to the cashier too. The least I can do is make it up to her by crossing another item off her list.
“Does this come charged?”
