by Megan Walker
“But you are happy,” I say, mostly to reassure myself. I hadn’t realized how worried I was that there was something deeper going on. Something I can’t fix with a new thong or . . . I don’t know, fuzzy handcuffs?
“I am,” Will insists. “Are you evaluating me for depression again? I took that quiz before, remember. I’m fine.”
I do remember. About six months ago, I’d been clearing out my messenger bag from a bunch of new forms they’d given us at the staff meeting to familiarize ourselves with, and remembered that anyone could have depression, even if they aren’t showing strong signs of it. So on a whim, I had both of us fill it out.
Apparently, these talks are easier for me when there’s a form involved. And also, maybe, when I’m not really worried that there’s a problem in our relationship.
“No, I’m not—I mean, I’m just checking in, you know?” I say. “Making sure everything’s okay.”
“Gabby,” he says, and there’s a hesitant note in his voice that gets my shoulders tense again. “You’d tell me if you wanted me to get a job, right?”
Oh god, is that what he thinks this is about? “No!” I say quickly. “I mean, yes, I’d tell you. But no, I don’t. I don’t want you to give up on your dream.” That’s the last thing I want. If he’s already stressed or unhappy—which he’s not, he says he’s not—I can only imagine how much worse that would be if he had to give up on his writing.
“Okay,” Will says, but he doesn’t sound particularly convinced.
I’m about to reassure him again, but there’s a knock on the doorframe, and I nearly drop the phone, jumping to my feet. A girl in a wench costume similar to Delia’s stands there.
Shit.
“I’ve gotta go,” I say quickly, and barely hear Will’s “Okay, bye,” before I hang up the phone and quickly shove it behind a stack of bandage boxes I’d been playing a makeshift game of Jenga with earlier.
“Hi,” I say, then belatedly add, “my lady.” I’m still never totally sure just by the clothing who’s a faire customer or worker.
“You’re Gabby the nurse, right?”
“Right. Though technically I’m supposed to say I’m a Healer Wench.”
The girl gives me a small smile. She looks to be either nineteen or twenty, with dark hair so long—down to her ass—that I can’t help but wonder if it’s some sort of clip-on braid. She’s pretty, with a sharp face and big brown eyes. “Delia said you might be able to help me.”
“Ah. So you’re a worker here?”
She nods. “Beer Wench at the Tudor Rose Pub.”
So she doesn’t actually work at the Prancing Pig, but maybe all the Beer Wenches know each other. I wonder if they have their own Facebook group.
A quick scan shows she also doesn’t seem to have cut herself not fondling any statues. “What can I help you with?”
Her brow furrows, and she shifts uncomfortably. “I, um. I itch.”
“Okay,” I say, looking over her exposed arms and hands, none of which appear to be red. “Like a rash? An allergic reaction to something?”
“Um. No. I mean, maybe a rash, but . . .” She looks behind her, like she’s making sure nobody has snuck up through the open door, and then looks back at me. “Down there.” She points unnecessarily at her skirts.
“Oh,” I say. “Yeah, um . . .” I grimace, not really sure how to say this. “That’s not really what I do here, you know? Like I’m supposed to treat faire-related injuries, dehydration, that kind of thing. But if you’re having problems, um, down there, you probably want to go see your regular doctor or—”
“I don’t have a regular doctor. I don’t have insurance at all, I mean.” She gives a nervous little laugh. “I work at a Ren faire.”
Yeah, okay, I get that.
“Right. But I’m not really equipped here to—”
“Please?” She takes a step closer. “If you could just look at it and see what you think. I just—I work two jobs, and I don’t have a lot of time to run to a clinic if it’s just, like, a yeast infection. But if it’s something else . . .” She trails off, chewing on her lower lip.
I sigh. I definitely get the whole lack of time and cash problem, and as much as I was hoping this nursing job, at least, would involve a good deal less looking at other people’s genitalia, it’s not like I couldn’t pretty quickly let her know whether it’s worth a clinic trip or not.
“Okay, I’ll take a quick look,” I say.
“Thanks so much,” she returns, and is about to go sit on the cot, but I tug at her arm and lead her over to the stool. I only have one set of bedding here, and I’m not about to let anyone complaining of vaginal itching sit on it.
Then I go close the door. “There’s no lock from the inside, so hopefully no one will—”
I turn back and she’s already got her skirt hiked up around her chest, her very non-medieval purple lacy underwear down around her ankles.
Okay, then.
I grab my phone and use the flashlight feature, bending over to inspect.
“I’m April, by the way,” the girl says.
“Nice to meet you,” I say, studying her crotch. I wish I could say that this was the first time someone felt the need to introduce themselves to me while I’m checking—or even worse, shaving—their downtown bits.
Nursing is weird.
Also, I’m very glad I didn’t have her sit on the cot, because it’s pretty clear what the problem is, and she’s not going to love to hear this. They never do.
“Well, April,” I say, straightening and turning my phone light off. “You have pubic lice.”
“What? Eww!” She drops her skirts like the lice might be crawling up the fabric. Which, yeah, she really will need to wash that skirt.
“Sorry,” I say. “I know that’s no fun to hear. But it’s treatable. You just—”
“That lying son of a bitch knight,” she seethes, her hands balled up into fists. “I’m going to kill him.”
I grimace. “Sorry,” I say again, helplessly. That’s the part that’s really brutal about telling someone they have an STD.
“I should have known. He’s all, ‘Of course it’s just you,’ but you know it never is when they say that.” She shakes her head. “Steer clear of them. Especially ‘Sir Reginald.’” She puts his name in air quotes, so I’m guessing that’s not his real name.
I don’t have any plans to sleep with Reginald or any of the knights, but now having talked—briefly—to one of them, I can’t help but ask. “Is he the one that looks like Channing Tatum?”
“Oh no, that’s Chris. Sorry, Sir Christian. He’s actually a really nice guy,” she says. And I’m surprised, though after my interaction with Sir Stick-Up-His-Ass and Delia’s opinion and, well, the pubic lice, I’m not sure I believe April’s judgment of men. “But Reggie only seems like a nice guy, but then when you . . .” She continues to rail against Sir Reginald for awhile, and I let her. She deserves a good anti-man rant.
When she finishes, I’m finally able to give her treatment advice, telling her the product she can pick up at the drug store to treat this. I tell her about how to wash her laundry and bedding, and remind her not to have sex with anyone until it clears up.
She snorts. “Yeah, I may be done with guys for a long time after this.” She gives me a grim smile. “But thanks. I really appreciate it.” Then she strides out, her fists still balled up, and I wonder if Sir Reginald is going to be brought into the infirmary soon with a broken nose. And also, probably, pubic lice.
I quickly sterilize the stool—thankfully the medicine cabinet did have some Lysol wipes—and sanitize my hands, and then let out a breath, sitting back on the cot. I look at the picture of Will and me on the phone.
We may have problems—maybe—but they don’t require a genital delousing. And that, at least, is something I can be grateful for.
Gabby
I leave the Ren faire on Thursday afternoon when Beth, the other nurse they hired, shows up for the evening shift. I find the “privy” on the way out and change into jeans and a t-shirt, because I’d really rather not show up at a sex shop looking like a time-traveling prostitute.
The shop Anna-Marie picked for us to meet at isn’t a far drive from here, and as soon as I park, I see her getting out of a dark sedan—an Uber, no doubt. Anna-Marie doesn’t drive in Los Angeles, ever since a car accident with a Tour of Stars Homes Bus. I used to drive her places when we were roommates, but she’s taken to Uber or Lyft since. This is a habit I know Josh doesn’t love, especially as she’s becoming more recognizable after years on Southern Heat and the indie movie roles.
Apparently, though, he hasn’t yet managed to talk her out of getting into cars with strangers from the internet, and I don’t imagine he will anytime soon.
Anna-Marie grins and waves when she sees me. “You ready for this?”
I eye the front of the store, which, admittedly, doesn’t look as seedy as I imagined—just some mannequins in fairly tasteful lingerie in the window. It helps, I suppose, that it’s sandwiched between a Pinkberry and an H&R Block. “Definitely,” I say. “So this is a good place?”
She shrugs. “I mean, one wall of fake penises is much like another. But yeah.”
“I think I can skip the fake penises. Will’s is good.”
“Glad to hear it,” Anna-Marie says with a smile. “I’m sure we can find you guys something fun, though. Come on.”
She opens the door and we walk in. A blond girl with a huge nose ring—a gold hoop—greets us from the register by the door, though she doesn’t look up from the Us Weekly she’s flipping through. A quick scan of the store shows the aforementioned wall of dildos to our right, DVDs and magazines in the back, and racks of lingerie and other costumes in the middle. There’s a few other people in the store—a couple of guys back by the DVDs, and a woman in a crisp linen pantsuit closely examining a section that could be called Bondage R’ Us.
Anna-Marie heads right to the costumes in the middle of the store. “Ooh, check this out!” She grabs a sexy nurse outfit from a nearby rack—one of those short white dresses that barely covers one’s ass, with a big gap in the front for cleavage and little red medical crosses where one’s nipples would be. “You guys have done sexy nurse, right?”
I wrinkle my nose. “No. Nursing isn’t sexy. It’s my day job. And it involves a lot of blood and puke.”
“Okay, but wearing something like this, it could be.” She pauses. “Without the blood and puke, obviously. You know, you playfully examine him . . .”
“I don’t know how playful I could be. I’d get into work mode. Like ‘Ooh, let me examine those testicles. Are they enlarged? Oh, wait. Are they? That’s not good. That could be a hernia, or maybe a cyst—’”
Anna-Marie laughs. “Okay, physical descriptions are good. Diagnoses are not. But I get it. Something not work-related might be better. How about sexy cop?” She grabs at a nearby cop uniform, which is about as practical for law enforcement as the plastic, heart-shaped stethoscope would have been for nursing.
“And I, what, run background checks on his license plate number?”
Anna-Marie gives me a long-suffering look. Which is fair.
“I don’t know if role-playing is my thing,” I admit. “Remember that improv class? Where I tried to call 911 during a bank robbery-turned-musical number?” I didn’t really call 911. But I still maintain that if I was actually in a bank robbery and not an insane improv class, that would be way smarter than any singing and dancing I could do.
The teacher—Peter Dryden, star of Cuffs—did not agree.
“All right,” Anna-Marie says. “Let’s check out some other stuff.” Though she looks with interest at a short furry brown dress behind the cop costume, and I wonder if that’s going to end up being a purchase she makes. I know she and Josh do a fair amount of role-playing in their sex life; I’ve seen the Harry Potter robes in their closet. Though if they’re into dressing up like furry animals and getting it on, that’s news to me.
We make our way through the costumes to some display stands with the edible underwear Anna-Marie mentioned before. There’s licorice and gummy varieties, like I’d thought, but also one made totally out of those candy-necklace candies, called a Candy G-String. I look at the back of the box.
“Wow, this thing is equal to fifteen servings of candy,” I say. “He likes his Swedish Fish, but that seems like a lot.”
“He’s not going to sit there and eat the whole thing,” Anna-Marie says. She grabs another box. “But look, matching candy nipple tassels.” She pretends to swing them around on her chest and I laugh.
“I do that with a string of hard candies and Will loses an eye. I’m sure of it.”
She sets the boxes back down. “It doesn’t have to be edible underwear. Maybe just food in general? Chocolate sauce, whipped cream. Do you guys do that?”
I’m embarrassed to admit how very little we’ve done when it comes to sex that involves more than just, well . . . us. But Felix also suggested that, and he had a good point. “We haven’t, really. But food’s a good possibility.” I take out my phone and open the notes feature.
“What are you doing?”
“Just jotting down ideas. See? Sex with food.”
“No,” Anna-Marie says.
I pause. “I’m not going to have literal sex with food. I’m not Lily.”
This makes her laugh and groan simultaneously. Her cousin Lily rather infamously gave a blow job to a raw sausage in front of Josh a couple years ago, and I don’t think Josh has been able to walk past a meat counter without cringing since.
“No, but you should write down specifics. I know you. If you don’t, you’ll end up walking in the bedroom with, I don’t know, a sweet potato.”
“Will does like sweet potatoes,” I say like I’m considering it. I pretend to hold one up, stroking it. “You like my sexy yam?” I waggle my brows at her.
“Oh my god, you’re going to walk in there and smear him with baked yam.”
“Who said anything about baked?”
Anna-Marie shakes her head at me, but she’s definitely fighting a laugh. And hey, I might not be able to talk about sex shops—or maybe even sex in general?—without making a joke out of it, but humor is sexy, right?
Will always seemed to think so. But now I wonder if it’s the kind of sexy that stops being sexy after a while, when you want real sexy instead.
“What kind of stuff do you think Will would be into?” she asks. “Like have you ever talked about what stuff you guys might want to try?”
This reminds me of my failure to talk about this over the phone, and I flush. “No. I . . . just thought it would be fun to surprise him with an idea or two of my own.”
She squeezes my arm and nods. “Yeah, okay. Well, I’m sure we can find something to surprise him here.”
I imagine we can; I just hope it’ll be a surprise he actually enjoys.
We move on through the displays of flavored lube, through cock rings and Kegel balls and vibrators of all shapes and sizes, with Anna-Marie giving me reviews on the various things she’s tried, but none of it really appeals to me. I mean, I had a vibrator back when I was single, and I guess it’s still somewhere in our apartment, probably crammed in the back of my nightstand with an old copy of Sultry Sins. But I really haven’t felt the desire for that kind of thing since, well, I really just want to be with Will. And I know we can use that kind of thing together, but . . .
This. It’s this reluctance I have to doing anything different that’s keeping our sex life from being spicy. This is what I need to get past. I’m a grown-ass woman, for god’s sake.
I grab a copy of the Kama Sutra. That’s a good start, right? Lots of posi
tions, but doesn’t require external toys (that quickly become internal toys, I suppose).
I jot down a few more things on my list, too. The edible underwear thing could definitely be worth a try, even if it’s got the sugar content of a full Fong’s Breakup Tub and probably doesn’t taste even a tiny bit as good. A set of fuzzy cuffs with a blindfold—that could be fun. I mean, I’m not sure what I’d do with Will while he’s cuffed and blindfolded that I wouldn’t normally do when he has the use of his hands and eyes, but it feels like a small step towards that role-playing thing Anna-Marie speaks so highly of.
It’s all incredibly tame, I know, but I have to start somewhere.
It just feels embarrassing to feel like I’m “starting” when I’ve actually been having sex with my boyfriend—really great sex with my boyfriend—for three years now.
I try to ignore the burning behind my eyes at the thought that what has been so incredible for me might not be so for Will anymore.
“How about some new lingerie?” Anna-Marie asks, turning back to the clothes(ish) section in the middle. “Not costumes, necessarily, but just something cute and a little naughty.” She shakes a red lacy bustier at me.
I make a face and Anna-Marie’s brows draw together. “Do you not wear lingerie ever?” she asks.
“I do, but . . .” My cringe gets deeper. “Not a lot lately, I think. And I’m not a big fan of keeping the lights on, so lingerie hasn’t really been . . . necessary.”
Anna-Marie expression looks distinctly sad, which I don’t love. “Really? You don’t let him look at you?”
“I mean, I did in the beginning. You know I’ve had issues with my body, but Will was really good about reassuring me, and . . .” I shrug. “I guess time went on and I got a little insecure again.”
The red lacy bustier drops down to her side. “Gabs, you’re gorgeous. You’ve always been gorgeous. And Will wants to see your body.”
