Cade stayed late working on creating an online sales portal. Finally, she closed her laptop. She was almost out the door when she stopped. Maybe Amy was right. It had been a while since she’d tried any sex toys. There’d been the long wand that looked like a medical device from the fifties that had left her feeling bruised, and there was the vibrator with the porn star on the box and the warning label saying it caused cancer in California. Satisfaction Guaranteed did seem to have better stuff. And if she was going to work at a sex toy store, she’d better give the merchandise another shot. She picked up a Satisfaction Guaranteed shopping bag. She went into the back room and selected the Titan, the Ella, the Womanizer, and the Petit Lapin in her bag. Her hand hovered over the Twist Clit & Nipple Triple Sucker set, but it looked like something researchers attached to human subjects before there were ethics laws.
When she got home, she retreated to her room, locked the door, and listened to make sure Selena wasn’t in the house. She opened the bag from Satisfaction Guaranteed and took out the Titan. Then she took off her pants and crawled under the covers. Maybe the Titan would open a new world. She’d plunge it into her body. Fireworks would go off. Her body was beautiful. She deserved pleasure. The next time she looked in the mirror, she’d see something different. Someone irresistible. A woman who’d had an orgasm.
She positioned the Titan at her opening, took a deep breath, and pushed it in. It hurt like hell. She tried to pull it out, but it stuck, like her vagina was made of the sticky pads people used to hold cell phones to dashboards. And the Titan’s plunge had pulled her labia in with it. Maybe she should have gotten a mirror. Maybe it would have given her a better idea of how to insert the thing. But she’d rowed crew in college, the most painful sport, and if she could do that, she could do anything. She closed her eyes and pushed the thing in and out. In and out. In and out. She tried to breathe into the discomfort, but that didn’t help.
Finally she stopped. Rowing crew taught her endurance. It also meant knowing when the stroke was off and it was time to go back to the dock. She pulled the Titan out, wincing, and set it on the bedside table. It stood there, reminding her just a little bit of Sociopath, staring in through her kitchen window. Things are not going to work out for you, the dildo seemed to say. Twenty-nine is too late.
Chapter 12
The next day, Cade stood at the counter watching Selena charm a couple who’d come in to buy a pair of handcuffs. Selena was good with their customers—all ten or twelve of them—approaching the shy ones with care and joking with the bold ones. Earlier, Cade and Selena had made small talk about the rain, and they’d talked about movies. Cade never had time to watch them. Selena watched vintage sexploitation films on Becket’s reel-to-reel projector. Not much in common there. And they were no closer to profitability, but at least Selena didn’t seem to be actively mad at her.
The couple bought their cuffs. After they left, Selena wandered to the door and pushed it open, leaning against the frame. She turned to look back at Cade.
“It’s not raining,” she said. “Take a look.”
A city where people stopped to look at clouds that weren’t raining. Cade sighed, but she walked over to Selena. Selena held the door open, and they stepped outside. It was four o’clock and the street was quiet.
“Sunshine.” Selena pointed. Light gray clouds had pushed aside the dark gray ones.
“Optimist,” Cade said.
“I wish I still smoked,” Selena said wistfully.
“On the list of wishes that could come true, that’s near the top,” Cade said. She should make an effort. She should try to get along. “Why do you wish you smoked?”
“I smoked in high school. You can go outside when you smoke. If you’re at a party and you’re drunk and you’ve had way too much weed, and you want to be alone, you go out for a smoke, and no one thinks anything about it. You know?”
“No.”
Selena wrapped her arms around herself, goose bumps puckering on her bare arms. She was wearing a corset that looked like it belonged on a burlesque stage.
“No?” Selena said.
“I don’t get drunk, and I don’t smoke weed. My parents do enough of that for the family.”
God, she was boring.
“Sorry.” Selena looked down at her feet. “Of course you don’t. That’s on me.”
They were silent. Cade talked to people all the time. Part of her job. She didn’t know why she couldn’t think of something to say now. Their first day together Selena had told Cade more about herself than Cade should learn in a month, and she’d asked Cade about her life, and listened to the answer…which was rare. Now Cade couldn’t tell if Selena was giving her the cold shoulder or just lost in her own thoughts or maybe Selena was just legit cold because she’d worn lingerie to work in the winter.
Finally Cade said, “I get what you mean about parties. I can network the hell out of a party, but sometimes I’m standing there and I just want to go sit on the roof instead.”
Selena looked up as though Cade had given her a gift.
“Totally,” she said.
“When I was a kid, I used to wish that I could freeze time for everyone but me,” Cade said. “Everyone else would be, like, statues, and I could walk around in the world.”
She’d never told anyone that. She didn’t know why she was telling a woman who thought she was a soulless capitalist, but something about the empty street and bright gray sky made the moment feel like time had indeed frozen. Cade looked at Selena. Truce?
“Was it so you could see what they had in their drawers?” Selena asked. “Could you open drawers, or were you more like a ghost who could move around but not touch anything? That might be more useful, because you could walk through walls. You could see more. Catch criminals. See people having sex. That’s what I’d do. And I’d love to see Ruth again. But you have to be careful. If you got to be a ghost for a little while, do you come back like Lazarus, all half-dead and shit?” Selena cocked her head. “But it’s your freeze-time fantasy. What do you want to do?”
“When I was a kid, I wanted more time to do my homework.” She rolled her eyes at herself so Selena wouldn’t have to.
Selena said, “Because you cared about doing a good job.”
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For not saying how dull that is. I didn’t even think about catching criminals.”
“I worked hard in school too,” Selena said. “I was valedictorian for Tristess High.”
Cade was surprised and felt bad about being surprised all in the same moment. Just because Selena had a full wardrobe of fake fur and wanted to paint her vulva didn’t mean she wasn’t scholastic.
“Of course, that only meant I studied harder than eighteen other kids,” Selena added.
“Valedictorian is valedictorian,” Cade said.
“So why would you watch people have sex if you were a ghost?” Not a question Cade would usually ask, but Selena had told her about her celibacy vow and her favorite dildo, and Cade was making nice.
“I want to see that moment when you can’t hide who you really are,” Selena said.
Cade had never reached that moment. That was her problem.
“Dance like no one’s watching.” Selena leaned against the doorframe and smiled at Cade.
“We have that pillow,” Cade said.
“And you love it.”
“I do not.”
“I’m going to get you a shirt that says YOLO.” Selena reached out and gave Cade’s arm a little shove.
Cade noticed the touch like Portlanders noticed a light gray sky, like it was special when it really wasn’t.
“I never dance like no one’s watching,” Cade said.
“Sure you do. I’ve seen it,” Selena said.
“When?”
“When you’re working,” Selena said. “On your computer. At night, when I come in for cereal and you don’t even hear me.”
That’s when she showed her true
self. Sad.
“It’s cool,” Selena said. “You’re doing something you’re good at.”
The sky faded back to dark gray. A few drops of rain hit the pavement. Selena shivered again.
“I’m sorry I called you a soulless capitalist,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with being a businesswoman. You’re a feminist. You’re like Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”
“I don’t know if I get to be in RBG’s class, but I’ll take it.”
Selena looked at Cade very seriously.
“Did I hurt your feelings?”
Yes? No? I don’t talk about feelings?
“I’m fine,” Cade said. “I probably am a soulless capitalist.”
“You’re not.”
Cade looked away from the intensity in Selena’s dark eyes. She probably looked at lots of people like that.
“You stayed in Portland to help,” Selena said. “You have a life in New York, your job, your friends, your cat, your weird Craigslist ads—I’m not judging—and your houseplants are probably dying, unless someone’s looking in on them for you, but that’s a weird favor because it’s a pain in the ass to watch other people’s plants, so you don’t want to ask, but then if you don’t they die, and you come home to dead spider plants.” Selena said it all in one breath, like the eulogy. “I really appreciate that you stayed.”
Selena was close enough that Cade could see the flecks of green in her dark eyes. A few freckles on her nose. She wasn’t as magazine-perfect as Cade had thought. Someone might say her nose was big. Her lips weren’t symmetrical, and it gave her a mischievous look even though her face was serious. The imperfections made her prettier.
“I didn’t mean what I said on the phone,” Cade said. “You helped Ruth run the shop the way she wanted to run it. She didn’t tell you that unpaid bills are in a box labeled Chardonnay and Clitorises.”
Selena looked around. “But if the bills are in Chardonnay and Clitorises, where are the clitorises and Chardonnay?”
Cade laughed.
“We’ll have to look for them,” Selena said, a hint of coquettishness in her voice.
She was charming. It was obvious why everyone at the funeral had cheered her on. She was so real, so open.
“I think they’re in a box labeled Life Stuff,” Cade said.
“What more is there?” Selena grinned.
Banks. Mortgages. Contracts.
Selena bounced on her toes and rubbed her arms.
Cade slipped out of her blazer and was about to settle it over Selena’s shoulders when she realized what she was doing. Cade did not drape jackets on beautiful women. She stumbled over her words around beautiful women, then invented conference calls so she could run away from them. But Selena turned her back, and it was obvious she expected Cade to help her into the jacket. As Cade laid the jacket over her shoulders, Selena pressed her hand to Cade’s for a second.
“You’re a gentleman…woman…person.” Selena ran her hands down the front of Cade’s blazer. “And you’ve got great style. I always liked preppy girls.”
That meant nothing, small talk. But Cade still had to swallow a smile.
At closing, Selena retrieved her fake-fur jacket from the back room.
“I’ll take you home on my bike.” Selena gestured to her motorcycle parked on the sidewalk outside.
They stepped out. Up close, the motorcycle was huge and looked like something out of a steampunk anime, with a telescopic headlight and unexplainable gears. Cade eyed it.
“Have you ridden one?” Selena asked.
Cade wished she could say, Yes, of course. What self-respecting twenty-nine-year-old lesbian hadn’t ridden a motorcycle? Probably to Provincetown, zipping in and out of the weekend traffic with a rainbow flag flying off the back. Cade shook her head.
“Are you scared?” It sounded like an honest question, not a taunt.
“That’s like a car without any of the things that make cars safe,” Cade said.
“I’ll make sure your first time is everything you want,” Selena said, with a stagey wink. More seriously, she added, “I fuck a lot of things up, but I ride beautifully. And my dad built the bike. He knows what he’s doing.”
It was the shy pride in Selena’s voice that persuaded Cade. She took the helmet from Selena and stared at her reflection in the shiny, black dome. It wasn’t too late to be the kind of woman who rode a motorcycle.
Selena swung one gorgeous, pleather-clad leg over the bike.
“Where’s your helmet?” Cade asked.
“I’ve only got that one. You wear it.”
“You can’t ride without a helmet.”
“I’ll be fine.” Selena did something, and the bike roared to life. “It’s not far. Two miles. Side streets.”
What self-respecting twenty-nine-year-old lesbian didn’t want to ride a motorcycle with a beautiful woman’s dark hair flying in her face?
“You have to wear a helmet,” Cade said. “It’s the law, and head injuries are a huge risk.”
God, she was boring, but she was right too. Selena couldn’t ride unprotected, side streets or not. Cade opened the Uber app.
“All right, Mom,” Selena said, putting on her helmet and snapping the visor down.
“You have to wear a helmet,” Cade said. “Always.”
The motorcycle belched smoke. The muffler backfired. Over the noise Selena yelled, “You’re sweet, Cade Elgin. You know that?”
And she sped off, her hair flying out from beneath her helmet, her purple fake-fur jacket flying out behind her. Despite all the artists Cade had discovered, all the openings she’d been to, all the museums, all the galas, Cade had never seen something so magical.
Chapter 13
Selena stood at the door to Satisfaction Guaranteed, looking out at the pouring rain. Not sex toy buying weather, even for Portlanders. Selena wished the store were busier. A day like this made it hard to convince Cade that Satisfaction Guaranteed was doing just fine without any of Cade’s Target-style interventions.
Cade sat behind the counter with her laptop.
“I’ve signed you up for the inventory management class,” she said.
“You’re going too, right?” Selena asked.
“I’m pretty good with inventory management already,” Cade said, still staring at her computer.
“Oh.”
Selena felt a pang of disappointment, not that she wanted to spend more time with Cade. They spent enough time making stilted conversation in the store and passing each other politely in Ruth’s kitchen. But it’d be interesting to see Cade in a different setting. Selena liked to watch her. Cade was a handsome woman, and Selena had been celibate for quite a while, so obviously…it was hard not to look. But Cade was a bit of a mystery too. She was uptight, so professional. But standing at the door the other day, Selena had glimpsed sparks of humor and a touch of shyness that made her wonder what Cade was really thinking. She wanted to know.
“It wouldn’t be the same without you,” Selena said.
Cade looked up. “It will be exactly the same without me.”
“You have to suffer with me.”
“I can get work done at the house.”
“It’s going to be so boring I will pull my hair out, and I’ll leave if you’re not there to inspire me.”
“Really?” Cade rolled her eyes. “It’s three hours.”
“That I will never get back.”
Selena tossed her hair over her shoulder. She had gorgeous hair. That was not a life plan, but it was a nice asset. She thought she caught Cade’s eyes lingering.
“Fine.” Cade typed something into her laptop. “There. I’m registered.”
“Fabulous.” Selena went back to wandering the store, straightening the shelves as much as she could when they were packed tight.
“Hey,” Cade said. “I’m working on an online portal. For sales. I need product descriptions. You want to look at mine and see if they work?”
“You’re going to let me be useful?�
��
Cade looked confused. “You are useful.”
Selena walked over to the counter. Cade turned her laptop around.
The Vilo comes in turquoise, black, and ivory. Six vibration speeds. Waterproof up to a depth of seven feet.
That’d be adventuresome, even for Selena.
Product packaging contains forty percent recycled materials. Heavy charging cord gives a lower voltage drop. Average charging time for a full charge = ninety-five minutes for 110 volt grids, sixty-two minutes for 220 volt grids.
“I’ve…” Selena began. Read sexier descriptions of motor oil.
She remembered Cade’s hunched shoulders when she’d barked at her: You’re picking up dildos like they’re going to bite you.
I’m sorry, Cade.
Selena pretended to read a few more descriptions. They’d be great if Cade were describing printers.
“This is a good start,” Selena said, “and maybe because I’ve worked here for a while, I could add a bit here and there.”
Cade looked relieved.
“You did a good job with the cables. Our toys do charge fast.”
Selena took Cade’s place behind the counter. She caught a whiff of Cade’s cologne as they passed each other in the tight space, and she breathed in deeply. Just because it was a nice cologne. It was hard to find foresty colognes that didn’t smell like Pine-Sol. That was all. Just interested in your perfume.
It was fun thinking of ways to describe the toys. How was the Sundance different from the Titan? What were the best features of the Dolphin? Selena was engrossed in her work when the door chimed. On the other side of the store, Cade was staring out the window at the rain. She’d been talking about frosting the glass, but it hadn’t happened yet. Cade turned to the newcomer.
“Let me know if you have questions,” Cade said, in a tone that said, For the love of God don’t have questions.
Selena looked up to see if the customer needed help. Then she froze.
“I’m here to see Selena,” Alex said to Cade.
Selena could leave through the back. She’d be on her bike before Alex followed her out.
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