chokes on a laugh, and her hands, still full of flesh-colored rubber penises, fly to her mouth. I shake my head. “Shannon.”
“What?”
“Richard? You want to set me up with a guy named Dick? Come on.”
Her face goes still as she processes, and then she doubles over laughing, her ponytail of golden curls flying by my face as she cackles toward the floor. “I swear I didn’t think of that,” she gasps without looking up. “But, oh my god, that’s amazing.”
Letting her own guffaw loose, Butter adds, “I knew a Willy in college. I bet he’s still single. Want me to give him a call?”
Liz giggles over the boxes. “One of our groomsmen is named Peter.”
Jerking up to a standing position, Shannon has tears streaming down her face. “What about Rod who does deliveries on Thursdays? Or, okay, there’s a guy who works at the butcher shop by my house, and cross my heart, his name is Lance Johnson.”
She flops over onto the prep table, completely taken by hysterics. Butter is making strangled sounds as she tries to pull in air through her laughter, and even Liz has lost it.
“Hardy-har, yes, it’s hilarious, they all have names like penises,” I say, shaking my head. My coworkers are all in various states of collapse, clutching sex toys, laughing like ten-year-old boys, and while sure, Lance Johnson is actually pretty hilarious, I’m not feeling very chuckly at the moment.
It really has been forever since I’ve even been out with a guy who wasn’t Ryan. Even worse, it’s been forever since I’ve been out with Ryan himself. I can’t remember the last time he and I went out on what would be considered a date. We hit that too-comfortable stage even before my giblets went on strike, and half the time we spend together is ordering in and eating from take-out containers on the couch because neither of us wants to bother with dishes later.
We’ve hit the boring part of being an old married couple without ever doing the marriage bit.
As determined as I am to make this break a short and singular one, there’s no love lost for the weird, distant aching that comes from sitting next to someone you love because you’ve been together forever and wondering if you’re maybe just there out of habit.
You order your chow mei fun and routinely ask who wants the last dumpling because you’ve always done it. And in the early days of being together, you really cared that the other person got that dumpling, because you had all the feelings for them and wanted to see them happy. But after a certain point, you’re secretly thinking, “Fuck you, that’s my dumpling.”
It’s never even occurred to me until now that we’ve reached the “Fuck you, dumpling” phase of our relationship. And I can’t help but feel like this is mostly my doing. I don’t know what caused my vaginismus, but I do know I haven’t made it any sort of priority to fix the situation over the last two years.
It’s breaking my heart. Ryan deserves better than someone who hoards her dumplings.
It’s only now, standing here with my friends and our hands full of sex toys, that I realize I miss that early stuff in a relationship. Well, not just the early stuff, I suppose. The good stuff.
I want to want to give away my dumplings.
Shit. I feel lonely. And a little pathetic.
Wiping the tears off her cheeks, Shannon tries to regain some adult composure. “Oh, we’re just messing with you, Kat,” she says. “I promise. We will only set you up with people with non-phallic names, okay?”
I look down at the dildo in my hand and feel unexpectedly sad. “No, you guys are fine,” I assure her. “I don’t know if the dating thing is a good idea, but I’ve only got thirty-three days left to make this happen.”
“So let us set you up!” Butter insists.
I sigh. “I think you’re putting the cart before the horse there, Butter.”
“No way! Besides, who cares what comes first, the chicken or the dick!”
From the front of the store comes the muffled sound of a crash, and we all freeze. Like the guilty people we probably are, we scurry around the prep table, through the door, back behind the customer counter. Ben Cleary is standing by the register, biting his lip, fighting a laugh and feverishly attempting to wipe up the coffee we served him no less than fifteen minutes ago.
“I’m so sorry,” he says, without looking up, his voice cracking from the laugh he’s trying to contain. “I came back because I forgot I needed to change my order for next week. I dropped this. I’m sorry.” He finally glances up at us, and all hope for composure is lost. He bursts out laughing—full-on, leaning-on-the-counter, unable-to-breathe laughter.
It’s only then that I realize every single one of us has some manner of sex toy in our hands. Some of us multiple. Oh my damn.
Liz screams. She actually screams. She turns tail and flees back into the kitchen, scurrying so fast I can hear her crash into the prep table. Shannon, Butter and I calmly try to fling the contraband behind our heads and back into the kitchen, but someone flings a bit too hard, and there is a spectacular metallic crash as a stack of mixing bowls comes tumbling down. Liz screams again.
Ben Cleary is trying his very hardest to get a grip, but it’s just not happening. We all straighten up and try to look as professional as we can, but there’s really not a lot we can do to save this. Ben has coffee dripping from his fingers, and there’s a puddle spilling over onto our side of the counter. Shannon and Butter are just staring at him, blinking. And just when I think he’s got a handle on himself, he splutters into laughter again. I fear he may rupture something.
Motherhood may have robbed Shannon of shame, but I don’t think anything could have prepared her for this.
I clap my hands together loudly. Butter and Shannon jump. Ben puts the back of his wrist over his mouth to stifle the sound of his chuckling. There are actual tears in his eyes. “Okay. Shannon, could you go grab a couple of towels and help Mr. Cleary get this spill cleaned up? And, Butter, could you go check on Liz and see if there’s anything you can assist her with in the kitchen?”
Butter giggles, and Shannon slaps her across the arm. “Yes, of course,” Shannon says, aiming for a professional tone, and they scuttle away.
“And Mr. Cleary,” I continue.
“Please,” he says, his voice still cracking. He clears his throat. “Call me Ben.”
I smile at him. He’s being a real sport about the situation, all things considered. The wrist cuff of his shirt has coffee staining the edge. I look closer and see the spatter all over the light blue fabric of the button-up and the gray of his tie. Poor bastard. Came in for a cup of joe, walked in on a cacophony of dick jokes. Didn’t stand a chance.
“You said there was an issue with your order next week? If you’ll step down here to avoid the mess, I’ll be happy to help you with that.”
He shakes the coffee off his hand onto the counter and makes his way down to the other end where I’m now standing, holding out a towel for him. “I really am sorry about that,” he says, gesturing toward the spill. “It slipped.”
I take the towel back from him and give him a little half smile. “I bet it did.”
Shannon reappears at the other end of the counter and silently starts mopping up the mess, refusing to look at either one of us, her eyes dancing with a pent-up burst of manic hilarity.
Ben shakes his head and bites down another laugh. “I wasn’t listening, I swear,” he insists. “I came back in and was about to ring the bell. But when I heard Butter say the thing about the chicken, I laughed, I spilled, and that was it. And then you all came running out with...” He tries to swallow down the guffaw, bless him. His eyes tear up again, and it all comes out as an unfortunate snort.
“I kind of hope you broke a rib just