All I Ask

by Eva Crocker

  I rode past them, winding between potholes filled with grey water. The wind whipped up ripples in the pothole puddles. I locked my bike to the Our Pleasure sign. The door of the store played three digital notes when I pushed it open. The warmth inside was a relief.

  This Our Pleasure used to be a sporting goods store — the ceiling was a grid of tiles punctuated with fluorescent lights. The woman at the counter was wearing a mock doctor’s coat. She was tall and skinny with hair that was dyed white-grey with bright purple at the tips. Her eyebrows were painted on thick and her lipstick had sparkles in it. It was just the two of us in there. I was smelly and out of breath.

  “Hi,” she said. “Are you looking for something in particular?”

  I saw the back wall was covered in packaged dildos hanging from hooks slotted into the wall.

  “Just one of those.” I waved my hand towards the wall.

  “Let me know if you need any help.”

  “Thanks.”

  The strap-on section was relatively small compared to the long wall of dildos. K-Rock was playing through the store’s speakers. People were calling in to talk about bad vacation experiences. Kris had told me the brand name to get. She said other harnesses never worked for her, they dug in at weird angles or slid off her hips. A man on the radio was describing having to leave a resort in the Dominican Republic early because of a tropical storm.

  “The thing is, I paid four hundred, almost five hundred dollars for travel insurance that included ‘holiday interruption,’ that’s what they call it, that’s their words. Wouldn’t you call that an interruption? The power was out—”

  “That’s one way to end a honeymoon. We’re going to have to let you go, David, we’ve got another caller on the line, hopefully you’re feeling more romantic now that you’re back in sunny Newfoundland, ha ha.”

  I found a box with a picture of a muscled set of legs wearing a harness with a dildo stuck through a hole in the front. Kris said get extra small. I had to slide the first three boxes off the hook to get at the right size. Fifty-two dollars. And it didn’t come with the dildo; you had to buy that separately. I picked a see-through purple one that was vaguely dick-shaped but not hyper-real. Not the kind with veins and a crease in the head. It came with a small silver vibrator, not much bigger than a lima bean.

  “I won’t get graphic but I had a very serious case of food poisoning,” a woman on the radio was saying. “Couldn’t move, basically. It was coming out both ends.”

  “Well, Gloria, I sure hope you’re feeling better now. We’re going to let you go. We’ve got Marie from Paradise on the line, how’re you doing today, Marie?”

  I carried my boxes to the cash. The woman with the purple hair was standing on a stepstool, arranging packs of batteries on a shelf behind the cash. She had her back to me and I waited quietly for her to become aware of my presence. As the moment stretched on I felt more and more apprehensive about her turning around and being startled, but making a noise to let her know I was there seemed rude.

  “Okay, so this isn’t a story about me, but my daughter went down to the Bahamas last January with her fiancé and her two sons. They had everything booked, scuba lessons, windsurfing — the boys were really excited about that. And Air Canada lost the luggage. This was January, so they were in long pants. Took the airline four days to get their stuff to them. Four days. Personally, I find that outrageous.”

  “Thank you for that, we’re going to take a break and get right back to you with more vacation nightmares, ha ha.”

  When the clerk stepped off her stool and faced me, she was totally composed. She’d known I was there all along. Suddenly my own voice filled the store.

  “Are you ready to tie the knot?” my voice said through the speaker above the cash.

  “All set?” the clerk asked.

  “At Dawn’s Bridal Parlour we’ve got options for every bride, from classic to contemporary and beyond. We’ve got a dedicated team ready to assist you with selection and sizing, free of charge.” I remembered repeating those lines into the microphone, experimenting with different intonations. I tried one take as the bride’s fun friend and another as a competent, no-nonsense salesperson.

  “All set?” the clerk asked again.

  “Yes, thank you,” I said.

  She undid the cardboard tab on the top of the dildo box and pulled out the plastic packaging that held the dildo and mini-vibe. She slit the tape that held the two halves of the plastic packing with a pointed nail. “We test all the vibrators to make sure they’re working before you take them home.”

  “Let us help make your dream day a reality.” They’d gone with the first take, the one where I sounded the most like the real me.

  The stiff plastic opened like a seashell; she plucked the silver vibrator out of a depression in the packing. She held it between her thumb and forefinger and squeezed. The vibrator shook so hard and fast it seemed to change shape, becoming wider and longer.

  “Looks good?” she asked.

  I nodded. She squeezed again, it shuddered and stilled. She pressed it back into its plastic indent.

  “You’ll want to wash both of these with soap and hot water before you use them, I’m sure you know that.” She stuffed the plastic packing back in the box.

  “Do you need a bag?” she asked.

  “No thanks.” I dropped the two boxes into my empty bookbag on my way out. I felt them tapping my back with each step I took.

  “See, a vacation is all about unwinding, people work so hard they just need to relax every now and then, just need to get away — ” The DJ’s voice faded as the pneumatic door wheezed shut behind me.

  When I got out to my bike I texted Kris: Got it. I bent over the bike frame and fit the key into the lock. I felt a buzz in my pocket. I straightened up, leaving my keys dangling from the lock. I was expecting it to be Kris. It was a message from Viv: Are you still coming over for dinner tonight?

  I’d forgotten. I’d been about to invite Kris over to my place for supper, so we could try out the dildo. Maybe I could tell Viv I was feeling sick. There was a slight incline on the way down the street. The dildo box knocked against my back as I pedalled. When I stopped at the lights I took my phone out of my pocket and typed shit! forgot I’m working tonight, thurs? But then I thought about how she’d looked in the sunny backyard, excited to tell me her news. I backspaced the text and wrote Yup! What time?

  When I got home after supper at Viv’s I felt a sunburn tightening the skin on my cheeks and nose. I looked in the bathroom mirror and saw that my face was red and the wind had whipped my hair into curls.

  * * *

  The evening after my dinner date with Viv, I lay in bed with a satisfying ache in my thighs and butt from the bike ride the day before. The dildo box was slid between some summer clothes on the top shelf of my closet. Kris was at a drag show with Frankie and coming over later; I’d left a key in the mailbox for her.

  There was a shriek on Holly’s side of the wall. Then she called my name. I pushed myself up off the mattress. I stood in the middle of my room, barefoot and braless in my underwear and a T-shirt.

  “Are you okay?” I called.

  “Come here.”

  I went through the bottom drawer of my dresser and took out a pair of cut-off shorts. Holly was sitting on the edge of her bed with a Sobeys bag covering one hand. The overhead light was off. She had draped a silk scarf over her lampshade and the room was lit by its dull pink glow. It smelled like incense and dirty laundry.

  “I picked my pants off the floor and a mouse fell out of them.”

  I saw the small grey creature curled on a patch of bare floor, its tail stretched out straight behind it.

  “It’s dead?”

  “It was having a seizure or something.”

  “It probably crawled in your pants to die.”

  “I was going to pi
ck it up but I can’t.” Holly held up her hand; the Sobeys bag was draped loosely over it.

  “You want me to do it?”

  She nodded.

  I put my hand out like I was offering to shake hers. She stood, took the bag off and slid it on my hand, tugging the handles up to my elbow. I made a fist, crinkled the bag in my palm and released it. I knelt next to the mouse and held my hand over it. Its ears were round, its black eyes were open.

  “What am I going to do with it?” I said.

  “Throw it out the window?” Holly stood on the mattress, putting distance between her and the mouse.

  I inhaled: it was like stepping on stage, you just have to believe you’re the kind of person who can. I closed my fingers around the tiny body, and as I was turning my hand over, the mouse came to life. Its whole body was one muscle, straining against me. At first my hand closed tight around it; I felt the delicate bones inside it. Then the mouse flew through the air. It landed in the covers next to Holly. She stepped off the bed. The scarf fluttered and slid down the side of the lampshade, making the room much brighter.

  “It’s alive. It’s not dead. It’s alive.” I jumped up and down. I ripped the sweaty bag off my hand and let it float to the floor.

  “Fuck, it’s in my fucking bed,” Holly shrieked.

  “Shake the blanket, shake it on the floor.”

  The mouse was shivering in a wrinkle of Holly’s lilac-coloured comforter.

  She lifted a corner of the blanket and the mouse tumbled onto a sock on the floor. It was still again.

  “It’s dead now,” Holly said.

  We waited for it to move. It dragged itself forward with its front paws.

  “Fuck.”

  “We have to kill it,” Holly said.

  The mouse was making very slow progress across the bedroom floor. Its back legs were stretched out behind it on either side of its tail, not moving. The back half of its body got caught on the edge of the sock but it moved from side to side and freed itself.

  “How?”

  “Drop something on it.” Holly said.

  We looked around the room. Holly pulled a broom out from behind her dresser. I took the shiny red handle and lifted the bristle end over the tiny creature.

  “It’s suffering.” Holly said.

  “What if it doesn’t die?”

  “Do it hard,” she said.

  The mouse was inching itself out of the shadow of the broom’s black plastic bristles.

  “Just get it over with.” She was holding the dustpan, ready to shovel up the little body.

  I held the handle with both hands near the head of the broom. I tried to imagine the mouse was a windup toy covered in grey felt. A prop. I brought the broom head down as hard as I could. I felt the squish. I lifted the broom slowly. The mouse looked like someone had pinched it; there was a dent in its soft middle and guts had come out of its mouth.

  “Scoop it up, scoop it up,” I squealed.

  Holly came at it from the tail end, pushing the rubber edge of the dustpan under the mouse’s belly as she hefted the dustpan. The same motion you’d use to flip an egg in a frying pan. The mouse was briefly airborne again, then landed in the middle of the dustpan. There was a small smear of blood on the floor.

  “Oh god, I shouldn’t have done that, I wish I didn’t do that,” I said.

  “It’s okay, it was dying, it was suffering.”

  “Fuck. That was disgusting. It was so tiny.”

  “No, it’s good, you put it out of its misery,” Holly said.

  “Get rid of it,” I said. “Please.”

  Holly opened window and tilted the dustpan, letting the little body tumble into the night. The coughing woman was out there, I heard her rattling breath.

  Holly put the Sobeys bag on her hand. She spat on the floor and rubbed at the mouse blood with a sock. She flipped the bag inside out and knotted the sock inside. I lifted the silk scarf off the floor; there was a circle in the centre of the fabric that had been bleached by the light that shone out of the top of the shade. I positioned the slippery fabric so the circle sat in that same spot.

  “Do you hate me?” Holly asked, hauling the comforter off the bed and stuffing it into her wicker hamper.

  “No, absolutely not,” I said. I hated how earnest I sounded.

  Bits of the hamper cracked off as she pushed the fabric down into it with both hands.

  “Are you moving out?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you hate me?” I asked. “I’m sorry, I know I said I would pay for your glasses, I’m just broke.”

  She turned to face me.

  “I shouldn’t have said that, that you might be involved, I shouldn’t have said it in front of Dave.”

  “I don’t care about Dave.” I picked the knotted Sobeys bag off the ground. “I’ll throw this out.”

  Outside the bedroom it was cold. I ran through the dark downstairs in my underwear, the knotted bag swinging in my hand. I dropped it in the garbage and slammed the spring-loaded lid on top of it. Then I went to bed. I called goodnight to Holly through the wall and she called goodnight back.

  I woke, disoriented, to the noise of someone trying to make their way through the mess in my dark room towards the bed. For a minute panic constricted my chest. Then relief, realizing it was Kris undressing at the side of my bed. I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep with her beside me.

  In the morning, Kris woke up before I did and went to pee.

  “Are you awake?” she whispered when she got back from the bathroom, wrapping her cold feet around my calves.

  “I am now.”

  “Good. Should I fuck you first or do you want to do me?”

  “I’ll go first,” I said.

  “Meaning?”

  I curled my forehead into her chest and laughed. She dragged her nails over my scalp.

  “You fuck me,” I said. “It’s in the closet.”

  “Okay.” Kris jumped out of the bed and stood on tiptoes to get the strap-on out from between folded summer dresses and tank tops on a high shelf in the closet.

  “Is that what you were hoping I’d say?” I asked.

  “Yeah, kinda.” Flimsy floral things rained down around Kris when she got hold of the box. She used her teeth to rip open the package with the harness in it. She slid the nylon straps up over her bare legs, then adjusted the plastic toggles. Her bush was sticking out around the fabric in the front.

  “Does it fit?” I asked.

  “Yup.” She pulled the loose nylon straps at the back.

  She picked the dildo box off the floor and ripped open the cardboard flaps on top of the box.

  “You look hot,” I said.

  “Play with yourself.” Her back was curled, the hip strap of the harness pulled far away from her stomach, doing the awkward work of feeding the dildo through the rubber circle in the front of the harness. I rubbed myself theatrically, grinding and whimpering a little.

  “Did you get lube?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Oh.”

  I wormed over to the edge of the mattress on my stomach, held her by the hips and made her stumble towards me. Her thighs were up against the edge of the mattress. I put my mouth over the dildo and let it slide into my throat then pulled back. “Is that hot?”

  “Yeah.” But she pushed me away. I flipped onto my back, and she climbed up on the bed and straddled me. The hard plastic cock hovered over my ribs, her wet crotch against my stomach. She ran her hands over my breasts. My legs were hanging off the side of the bed and my sock feet were on the floor. The open window let in the loud beep-beep-beep of the garbage truck reversing in the church parking lot.

  “You want to try it without lube?”

  “Let’s try it. We can stop if it’s bad. Or I mean, if it’s n
ot good.” I opened my legs, and Kris moved backwards. She spit in her hand and rubbed it over the dildo. “I’m warming it up for you.”

  I tilted my hips and she nudged the dildo inside me.

  “Good?” Kris asked. The longer bits of her curly hair swished around her face; her features were different from this angle. She had one hand flat on the mattress by my ear and the other between my breasts. I nodded. She pushed it in deeper, watching my face. It was thicker than I’d expected: a jolt of urgency shot from my crotch to my lungs. Outside the dumpster crashed back into the parking lot, making everything on my dresser jump.

  “Still good?” Kris asked.

  I wrapped my legs around her back. She started moving her hips, holding me in place with her warm palm.

  After I came Kris loosened the straps of the harness and kicked herself free of it. I stood at the foot of the bed and picked it out of the covers. The velvety triangle of fabric in the front was damp from Kris.

  “How does it feel?” she asked, once I had it on.

  “Maybe it’s a bit low,” I said. The plastic cock was pointed at the floor instead of straight out in front of me.

  “Yeah, I felt like that at first too.” Kris got off the bed and started adjusting the harness on me. I saw the muscles in her forearms shifting beneath her skin. The dildo righted itself.

  “Your ass looks so good.” She slapped me lightly.

  “Get on the bed,” I said, trying to sound stern.

  Kris smiled and kissed me on the cheek before dropping back onto the twisted covers. I wished I had practised moving my hips. What if I couldn’t get a good rhythm going? I knelt in front of her and put my face in her crotch. First I sucked her clit and then I put my tongue in deep, where the taste of her was strongest. The dildo was sticking tip-first into the mattress and the base was digging into me at a weird angle, just below my belly button, but I kept going until Kris pulled me up by my hair.

  “I don’t want to come yet,” she said.

  She surprised me by straightening her arms and lifting her hips off the mattress. She guided the plastic cock into herself, balancing with one palm on the mattress beneath her. She rocked against me, squeezing her thighs against my sides. Her breasts bounced each time she smacked into me. Her head was tilted back but I could still see her face: her eyes were closed, brows furrowed. I reached out and rubbed one of her nipples between my fingers. She breathed harder, encouraging. I tried moving my hips — for a moment the rhythm was off, she was pulling away just as I was diving in. Then we found it. I held her narrow body in my big hands and we kept sliding apart and coming back together in tempo.