"Okay look," I shouted, holding my hands up so they'd shut their yaps. "I have zero experience with any of this shit. I'm only doing this as a favor to my friend so I can make some extra money for my new business. I have had exactly one and a half sexual partners in my life and they were both pretty shitty experiences. The first one was in college and we were both completely trashed, I never got his name and he knocked me up. The next one was a friend of mine, and I decided to try it again and see if got any better. His dad had a key to his house and walked in on us two thrusts in, which completely killed any mood that might have been started. I've decided that my vagina is cursed. My orgasms have all been self-induced and have never been with anything that required batteries, a special cleaner, instructions or a weapon of mass destruction warning. If you want to place an order, I'll be in the kitchen. Try the chocolate-covered potato chips."
I turned and stalked out of the room and straight into the kitchen. Where was a giant, gaping hole in the floor to swallow you up when you needed one? Every woman in there was probably talking about what a loser I was and how they were going to tell everyone they knew to never do business with us. Shit, Liz was going to fire me. I was going to have to tell people I got fired from selling dildos. I can't even sell fake cocks to a room full of horny women. How do you come back from that shit? And on top of it all, I just spilled my deepest, darkest secrets to a room full of strangers.
"Oh, honey, you poor thing," Jenny said as she hurriedly walked into the kitchen and threw her arms around me. One thing new people learned about me real quick - don't invade my personal space or you will get punched in the neck.
I stood there stiff as a board with my arms out to the side. I don't understand huggers. I really don't. A nice, solid pat on the back worked just fine.
"I'm buying you a Jack Rabbit," Jenny proclaimed.
"Whoa, no, really that's okay," I tried to argue as I pulled out of the hug. That thing scared the shit out of me. Four speeds, ears and beads that spun around. You should have to get a permit from the city to even power that thing up.
After several minutes of cajoling, Jenny managed to pull me back into the living room, and after she announced that she was going to buy me a toy, the whole room erupted in agreement. Much to my mortification, all of them began commenting to one another about what they were going to buy me. I had to draw the line when they started talking about throwing me a Vibrator Virgin party. I heard the words penis-shaped ice cubes and penis pasta salad, and I started getting a headache from hell. Any moment now they were all going to join hands and sing Kumbaya to my vagina—my poor, unloved vagina that never knew the pulsating touch of a rubber penis. I'm sorry vagina, I should have taken better care of you, I guess.
At the end of the show, I sold twice as much as normal because everyone bought two of everything, one for them and one for me. If my vagina wasn't covered in cotton and jeans, it might have taken offense to their looks of pity. I swore as they all placed their orders they looked down between my legs. Now, I know how chicks with huge boobs feel when a guy won't look you in the eyes.
When the last girl left with a hug for me and Jenny and a goodie bag of fun in her hand, we both collapsed on the couch in the living room.
"Thanks for doing the party tonight, Claire," she said with a smile. "And thanks for the awesome tray of desserts. Seriously, you have a gift. Those chocolate-covered pretzels drizzled with caramel almost gave me an orgasm. And that's saying a lot considering I was surrounded by fibrillators all night."
My eyes popped open and I raised my head from it’s spot resting on the back of the couch to stare next to me at Jenny’s profile while she absentmindedly check out her manicured nails. She was a nice person and we got along really well, but some of the things that came out of her mouth tonight boggled the mind.
"Um, Jenny do you mean defibrillators?"
Why she was even using that word in a sentence about a sex toy party was beyond my scope of imagination, unless she assumed something in my bag of tricks would stop someone’s heart. Come to think of it, I almost had a heart attack when I saw the size of the Grape Gargantuan. Where exactly is a woman supposed to stick that thing, in the Hoover Damn to plug it up?
"Wait, what did I say? I meant vibrator. Oh my gosh that's so weird!"
I just shook my head and got up off of the couch to pack up all of the stuff into the extra suitcase Liz gave me for the supplies. Just my luck, I get to keep all of this shit in my house. If anything ever happened to me and the police or some other authority figure had to go through my house, I was going to be completely humiliated from beyond the grave if they find this suitcase.
Oh, Jesus, what if my dad found this thing? He was going to think I was a freak. What woman needed a suitcase with thirty-seven vibrators and nineteen bottles of lube? Shit, I needed to store this stuff at Liz’s house. I didn't tell my dad yet about Liz’s part of the business. No girl should ever be forced to have a conversation about dildos with her father. That was just wrong on so many levels. He could find out the first time he walked into the store just like everyone else.
"So, I'll get started on your flyer this week as soon as you send me photos of the items you want featured on it. I'm going to do one for you, one for Liz and then one that combines both of your stores. You said you guys were going to get together tonight and decide on a name?" Jenny asked.
"Yeah, I'm headed over to her and Jim’s house tonight,” I explained as I zipped the suitcase closed. “Hey, why don't you come with me? You can help us brainstorm."
"Oh, I don't know. I don't want to impose."