First of all, I had to go into Early to Bed and ask for the plus-size kind, which was weird because I made it weird, not because they did. The woman at the counter handed me a plastic bag filled with what looked like a tangled mess of black jump ropes. She asked me if I wanted to try it on, and I just stood there, dumbfounded, flushing scarlet as I imagined this young woman helping me navigate all those hooks and pulleys, trying to get my angry joints through the right holes. Also, it was like three in the afternoon and I’m not sure what my baby parts smelled like, and please just give it to me in an unmarked plastic bag, okay? I chose a large lavender penis, smooth silicone with a curved tip and a couple of soft ridges, paid for it and the harness, then promptly hid them in my closet for three months.
Mostly because I’m lazy. And everything I read on the Internet about fucking someone with a strap-on said I would need to practice while also subtly hinting that I could probably stand to be in better shape to provide the most fulfilling sexual experience. What would Helen Keller be doing while I was tiptoeing around my apartment with my big plastic penis waggling between my legs? Or worse, while I was simulating doggy style on a pillow while standing next to the bed?! The one time I took everything out of the packaging to practice assembling it, I walked out of the room for half a second and came back to find the goddamned cat hugging and kicking the dildo while gnawing on its head. “Put my dick down!” I yelled, swatting at her with the edge of a blanket as she continued scratching up my new penis. “Put my motherfucking dick down!”
I’ve watched enough porn to know how to do it. At least in theory. I was especially anxious to try that move where you mount the lady from behind and push her head down so she won’t notice you’re reaching for that last piece of bed pie you left on the nightstand for a snack. I wasn’t so sure about the other positions:
Missionary: BORING. Also, I am a heavy person who has a very real fear of collapsing a skinny person’s lungs beneath the weight of my tits or whatever. Also also, the idea that I would have to do something with my face other than grimace in excruciating pain is the worst.
Girl on top: Fine, but again, I would be thinking a lot about what’s happening on my face, which would be a direct reflection of what was happening with my strapped-on member. So, mostly nothing.
Spooning: Well now, this sounds lovely and nice. Like cuddling, but more intrusive. But I would for sure go to sleep. Guaranteed. Especially because this asshole is always trying to serve me wine with dinner and then put the moves on me.
What else even is there? Seriously, do men have to think this goddamned hard?!
—
On dildo night Mavis cooked dinner at the lake house in South Haven: salmon, rice, bok choy, and these purple green beans from the farmers’ market that turn green after you cook them. Miniature lemon chess pies. Bourbon. Glasses of wine. This was going to be an event. We crawled into bed afterward, queueing up that Denzel drunk-pilot movie on the iPad, and I was asleep within thirty seconds, not even kidding. Mavis nudged me awake with a rolled-up New Yorker, peering at me disgustedly over her reading glasses, hair tied up in its bedtime topknot. “Seriously? You’re just going to sleep?!” And at that moment I turned into every chubby sitcom dad on every show you’ve ever watched while picking at the peas on your dinner plate.
“Nope!” I rolled out of the bed and into the bathroom to change into my night caftan, this gauzy black thing that your aunt Susan lent me and that I think is pretty sexy but am probably totally wrong about. I tore open the nondescript plastic pouch the harness came in, slipped my penis through the rubber O-ring attached to the back plate, and secured it at the base. Once I was satisfied that it was firmly in place, I stepped awkwardly through the nylon leg loops, then pulled the loose ends through the backpack strap fasteners to tighten them under my butt meat. Mavis looked on, unimpressed. This is worse than waiting for some flaccid dude to get his dick hard. I connected and tightened the top strap and immediately started giggling because my nipples fucking got caught in that shit and I had to, like, free them. I don’t know what the fuck I was picturing. I mean, I guess I thought it would be like a horn sticking out of my stomach or something? But the fabric backing molded to my mons pubis and the dick dangled between my legs like, well, like an actual dick. Except purple and silicone and unlikely to require Plan B. “IT FEELS WEIRD,” I said, frozen, standing next to the bed like an idiot.
—
I lay on my back and she straddled me, grunting as she struggled to jam my huge member into a vagina that had clearly dried up while watching me fool around with all of those stupid levers and pulleys. I circled my hips and laughed while she humped me, feeling nothing below my waist other than a leg cramp that, with my luck, was probably a blood clot. She dismounted moments later, her smoking inner thighs smelling like a Barbie doll someone had set on fire. “That was dumb,” I whined. “Let’s just eat some more pie.”
She e-mailed me her feelings about the whole thing afterward, because that is what some ladies do.
If you really wanna know the truth (and this gets all mushy but it’s real) the longer we’re together, the more emotionally intimate and committed we get, the more I want that intimacy and connection during sex. Not all the time, it doesn’t always have to be fingers laced intense eye contact weeping afterward sex, but I love that we can and do have that. And the strap-on isn’t that, at least not yet, and it’s also not yet just fun taboo banging—we’re not skilled enough at it for that. so we’ve gotta practice if we want to get there. And we have such limited time it’s hard to see strap-on expertise becoming our sexual priority. Not saying I want to stop playing around with it (or try one myself), just giving you a little glimpse into my heart.
Oh brother, all these feelings. This is the part I’ve found I’m less good at, all the processing we have to do. All the thinking and the feeling and the talking that is required. Licking her asshole? Not a problem, bro. I just held my breath and did it until I thought she was going to shit in my mouth and then I backed off. Talking about my emotions for an hour after I just put in thirty-seven minutes of really taxing physical labor?! PROBLEM. I’m not one of these Neanderthals who pretends I was hatched before having fully developed the feelings part of my brain, but talking about them all the time is exhausting. I can’t just pat her on the back and say, “Good job, sister,” I have to stare into her eyes and tell her how much these experiences move me. And I have tried, but I can’t stop laughing. And that shit is rude.
Couldn’t she have just said, “Meh, your sex game is whack,” while rolling over to fetch her nighttime-specific hand cream and reading materials from the library? Why we gotta be all heart glimpsing about it?! Man, having a penis has turned me into such a dick.
Fuck It, Bitch. Stay Fat.