Dating Without Novocaine (8 page)

“A
t least you know now why he was so unsure all the time,” Louise said as we crossed the street from my house to Laurelhurst Park, beginning our Sunday constitutional. The park was wooded with fir at this end, where we poor folk lived. Half a block away on either side, the houses lining the edge of the park were big, old and expensive, with carefully tended yards.

“Yeah, he had no clue how he was supposed to behave as a heterosexual. I suppose I should think it funny, how worried he must have been the whole time, that he'd give himself away,” I said, still not thinking it funny. “And no wonder he gave me such a strange look when I made that comment about the elephant clitoris making things easy on a guy. He had no idea what I was talking about.”

“Are you still upset about it?” she asked. “I mean, are you okay with it? That had to be a blow to your ego.”

“I worked out my own form of therapy,” I said, smiling.

“How's that?” she asked, curious.

“I made a Voodoo Wade doll.”

“What?”

“Voodoo Wade,” I repeated. “I made a little doll and dressed it like him, and then I hung it by a length of filament in front of the window in my sewing room. He spins in the drafts, sort of like a twisting corpse on a noose.”

“And this helps?”

“Well, then I was downtown and got the bright idea to stop in a toy store and look for a slingshot. I couldn't find one, but I
did
find a fabulous rubber band gun.”

“Don't tell me.”

“Yup. So whenever I start feeling cranky about Wade's sexual orientation experiment, I sit on the floor with my gun and shoot him.”

“I love it.”

“It's very therapeutic. I do his screams myself, which Cassie finds a bit disturbing. I have to do it quietly at night, or she gets upset.”

We took one of the paved paths that wound through the interior, past lawns of sloping green.

“Are you going to give up on the Internet dating now?” she asked, sounding a bit like a scolding mother. It was hard to take someone with freckles and curls seriously, though.

“I don't know. I mean, it wasn't a dangerous experience. It was just weird.” I wasn't willing yet to admit my mate-shopping plan was a failure. “You haven't had any offers to meet anyone?” I asked.

“I haven't been replying to any of my e-mails,” she said quietly.

“Louise!” What was wrong with my friends?

“It doesn't seem fair.”

“Fair to whom?”

“To them. Not when I'm not really interested. You're going to give me a lecture about this, I know, but, well, I'm kind of interested in Derek.”

“The divorced guy? Oh, Louise. Say it isn't so.”

“I know, I know. I know all about guys on the rebound, divorce, all of that. But he's so easy to talk to, and we went to dinner again on Friday—”

“Louise!”

“I know! I'm bad. But it was just friendly, I promise.”

“You
know
this isn't a good idea.”

“I know,” she said.

“But you're going to do it anyway.”

“It's just friendly.”

We came out the other end of the park and crossed the street to the opposite sidewalk, heading deeper into the Laurelhurst neighborhood. I liked to imagine which house I would live in, if I had the money.

“Does he show any interest in you, beyond the friendly?” I asked.

“I don't know. I can't tell,” she said, warming to the topic, probably taking my question for a sign I thought it was okay, after all. “Sometimes I think so, but all the guys who work there, they're counselors so they're a little like women in some ways. They all like to talk, and I mean about people, not sports or toys. It's not like your average computer or business guy. So I don't know if he's opening up to me more than he would to anyone else.”

“Who suggested dinner?”

“It was mutual. Or maybe he did. It just kind of happened. We got off at the same time, and as we were walking out we started talking about that new Chinese restaurant a block away, and we decided to try it.” She peeked at me. “What do you think?”

“I don't know,” I said, and I didn't know. Who's to say it might not work? If it wasn't going to, she'd find out soon enough on her own, and then I could say, “I told you so.” “Be careful,” I added.

“I know!”

“Maybe you should meet a few of those guys who wrote to you. It'll keep you from getting too caught up in Derek.”

“Yeah, maybe,” she said.

I knew she wouldn't. “Cassie hasn't gone out with anyone, either,” I admitted. My friends were a bunch of cowards. “Do you know if Scott has?”

“He did, last night,” she said, and cast me a glance.

“You're kidding!”

“Some woman who just got her law degree, and has started working at the Clackamas County D.A.'s office. He says she's really smart.”

“Really.” My surprise was being replaced by some other, vaguely uncomfortable feeling. She had a law degree. Huh. “Is she pretty?”

“He says so. She's almost as tall as he is. He says it's nice to be able to look a woman in the eye for a change.”

I only came up to his chin. Not that it mattered. “Does he like her?”

“He says it's too soon to tell yet. You'll have to call
him, and get the full story. We got interrupted when his beeper went off.”

“Hmm.” The news brought me down for some reason. “Yeah, I'll have to call him.”

I get a confused gay guy, and Scott finds a beautiful lawyer. I should have been happy for him. Instead, I was jealous, and I thought I knew why. The Internet dating was my idea: I deserved to find success first.

I hoped the lawyer thing fizzled. She was probably too pushy for him, anyway. Too aggressive. I didn't have to worry.

“H
ow do I get rid of that little picture?”

“It's the PIP button, Dad. It means ‘picture in picture,'” I said as Dad fiddled with the remote control, trying to remove the box in the lower right-hand corner of the television screen.

The sound went mute, then came back on at wall-shaking volume.

“Here, I'll do it!” I said, grabbing the remote and returning all to rights.

“I don't know why they have to make it so complicated. What are all these buttons for, anyway? ‘Learning.' What's a ‘learning' button do?”

“You point the remote at your skull, press it, and suddenly it all makes sense.”

“Ha, ha, very funny.”

I got up and went to go help Mom in the kitchen. There was a pork roast in the oven, seasoned with rosemary, and the smell was making my mouth water. Apples were waiting to be peeled and diced for applesauce, so I took a knife and set to work as Mom started cutting shortening into flour for biscuits.

Home was a two-storied 1930 farmhouse, in a neighborhood of houses of much newer vintage. There was nothing left of the original farm, the land having been developed long before my parents bought the house. Mom had liked the old look of it, and Dad had spent every year since making repairs to the structure, and swearing that, “Next time we're buying a new house.” The threat used to scare me, thinking we'd have to move, but eventually I got used to it and realized he had no intention of relocating.

The yards, both front and back, were filled with bird feeders and baths, and Mom's carefully tended beds of roses. There was a workshop out back that Dad had built, for his “projects,” but mostly it seemed a place for him to store his junk, out of Mom's sight.

When Mom wasn't gardening or feeding Dad, she was volunteering at the library twice a week. She loved popular novels, and while Dad would sit and watch his games on the television, the volume loud enough to vibrate bones, she would be in her own world inside her head. I think all those years of teaching third-graders trained her to tune out at will.

All in all, I thought I was pretty lucky in the parents I'd gotten. They weren't sophisticated, they weren't wealthy, but they were kind and loving, and were still together, despite the occasional snippy argument that I was, thankfully, no longer around to hear.

“Have you been meeting any nice boys?” Mom asked.

“There's no one at the moment.” I had told her about the unexpected end to my relationship with Wade.

“I just can't stop thinking about that biologist. That poor confused boy.”

I frowned at her. “Poor confused boy? What about me? I'm the one you should feel sorry for.”

She waved off my words. “You're strong, you always come through. But that poor boy. How miserable he must be. Are you going to stay in touch, stay his friend?”

“No! Jeez, Mom, why would I?”

“He sounds like he needs a friend.”

“He shouldn't have lied to me. He should have let me know up front what was going on.”

“Poor boy.”

“I didn't do anything wrong!” She was making me feel guilty, when I was the victim. Wasn't I? “I don't want him as a friend. We really have very little in common.”

“Then why did you date him? You should be friends with the men you date. The passion doesn't last, you know. You need a friendship for when it goes away.”

“Do you feel like you and Dad have a friendship?”

She scooped biscuit batter and dropped it in rough mounds on a cookie sheet. “We have comfort, and familiarity.”

“Mom?” Comfort and familiarity? That was all?

She smiled, rather sadly, I thought. “Choose someone you can talk to.”

“You and Dad love each other, don't you?”

“Of course I love your father. He's just not much for conversation.”

I added water and sugar to the pan of diced apples
and set them on the stove to cook, my rosy view of my parents shaken.

I didn't really want to know of the disappointments my mother had suffered in her marriage. I wanted to think it was happy and content, and that the same situation was waiting for me, once I found the right guy.

I especially didn't like to think that all that time Mom had been sitting with a Jackie Collins novel in her hands, she was secretly wishing Dad would shut off the television and talk to her. How long had Mom been yearning for something more than she had?

Were there any happy marriages, once you looked beyond the surface?

Maybe I'd be better off staying single, and childless.

But no, that didn't hold appeal, either. I could too easily see a future filled with day after day of endless alterations, thousands of pants to be hemmed, bridesmaids' dresses to be constructed, pillow shams to be made.

I could spend the next fifty years in a cramped apartment surrounded by other people's clothes, never advancing beyond subsistence level, never getting far enough ahead to buy a house or to take a real vacation. With age my fingers would cramp with arthritis, I'd lose my ability to sew, and then eventually I'd die, a forgotten old woman with no one to mourn her passing.

Ugh. How was that for a depressing thought? At least with a husband I'd have someone to carp at, and blame my troubles on.

I spread the hand-embroidered linen cloth on the table, set it, then wandered back out to the living room and dropped onto the couch. Dad had a golf tournament
on, which was about the least offensive one could get, sound-wise, in televised sports. Even the announcers had hushed voices.

Dad and I sat in silence, watching soft-bellied men in saggy clothing.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Unn?” he grunted, not taking his eyes from the screen.

“If you had to give me advice about what type of guy to marry, what would it be?”

“What?”

“Dad, hello?” I said, waving my arms.

He finally looked away from the screen. “I don't know.”

“Come on, Dad, you must have at least one piece of wisdom to impart.”

“I'm not good at this stuff.”

I stared at him, not letting him look back at the screen, willing him to say more. He had lived a long time, worked with a lot of men. He should know a thing or two.

“Marry someone you enjoy spending time with.”

“Doesn't it matter if he has a good job?”

Dad shrugged. “No. That's it, someone whose company you enjoy. I don't know what else to say.”

I suppose it had a certain merit to it. After all, if you didn't enjoy spending time with someone, why would you marry him? But on the other hand, if you're in love, even with a loser who is going to bring you misery, you probably think you like the guy's company just fine. The good job would be some consolation, I'd think.

“Why do you think Mom fell for you?”

He blinked at me, and then his eyes lost their focus as he dug back through memory, his brows pulling together as he tried to find an answer.

“I don't really know,” he said at last. “I just got lucky, I guess.”

“Why did you fall for her?”

“She was about the prettiest, sweetest, smartest girl I'd ever met,” he said, face softening.

He stared into space for another stretch of time, and then the frown returned. “Why
did
she fall for me?”

I
t had been a long day, and now I was stuck in traffic between Hillsboro and Beaverton, two of the suburbs known for gridlock hell. Cars rolled slowly along in neutral, and it took an average of three cycles of the lights to get through an intersection.

Since eight-thirty in the morning I had been burning unleaded from Vancouver to Wilsonville, from downtown to the city limits. It was one of those days where none of my clients lived or worked near any of the others, and today was the only day they could fit me into their schedules.

I had at least three thousand dollars' worth of clothes hanging from the rack across my back seat, pins marking where jacket sleeves had to be shortened, bodice darts put in, hems taken up; there were wool pants and a leather jacket in need of linings; one woman had given me a designer skirt suit and asked me to take jacket and skirt apart to make her a pair of pants. She liked the fabric. Someone else had given me a fragile 1920's black velvet opera cape to be copied.

All of it together would take me no more than a week
to do, including trips to the fabric store, and that allowed for procrastination, an activity I was becoming addicted to. As business flourished and I felt marginally more secure about the money situation, I was getting progressively more inclined to waste time. It was a bad habit that I would have to keep an eye on.

There was no work I could do at the moment, though, stuck in traffic. It was guilt-free daydreaming time. With my mind free, though, it went right to one of my teeth that was showing signs of becoming cold sensitive, and it made me wince when I ate chocolate. I worried that that might mean a cavity.

I tried to think of something else. I flipped to the 80's station on the radio, and howled along to Cyndi Lauper's “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” although my heart wasn't really in it.

Fun. I wasn't getting much of that, was I? Since the Wade fiasco, I hadn't had a date. I had been leery of the Internet for a few days, not checking my personals mailbox, and then when I finally did there were several nasty notes from guys who were pissed that I hadn't written back. It had brought on a distaste for the entire system, and I hadn't checked my mail since.

Traffic oozed forward. The late-afternoon sun began heading for the Coast Range, and shadows from the tall Douglas firs leaned across the road. Headlights were turned on against the falling dusk.

I was horny, I was lonely for a man, and there was no solution in sight. No fun for this girl.

Or was there?

Rising out of the murky gloom up ahead was a phallus-shaped tower, outlined in tiny white Christmas
tree lights. An illuminated sign beneath it read, The Purple Palace, and in smaller, capitalized letters, Adult Superstore.

The traffic gave me plenty of time to contemplate as I approached the entrance to the parking lot. I'd never been in such a place, and imagined it was mostly middle-aged men who frequented them. I pictured private movie booths in back, complete with tissue dispenser and vinyl seats, a bulletin board with the names and numbers of escort services and rack upon rack of pornographic magazines.

But I also imagined they'd have vibrators and dildos.

I'd had a vibrator once, ordered from a catalog that catered to women, but it had died on me. I still had it, being paranoid that the day I tossed it in the trash would be the day the garbage can would fall over and the pink thing would roll out into the middle of the street, just as some kids were riding by on their bicycles, and they'd pick it up and ask what it was. Or worse yet, a cute male jogger would come by, and already
know
what it was.

I wanted to order another, but every package that came to the door was met with curiosity by Cassie, and although she would likely have cheered me on for buying a vibrator, I couldn't bear the idea of her knowing about it. I didn't want to discuss my masturbation habits with my housemate.

The parking lot was nearly empty. The few windows were papered over from the inside. The building was new, and could have passed for an electronics store—or, given the turreted tower up top, a kid's pizza parlor.

My heart thumped in my chest as the turnoff came nearer. Was I really going to do this?

I flipped on my blinker and turned, and told myself that a browse inside would get me off the road and allow the traffic a chance to thin out. And if I didn't buy anything, I could entertain my friends telling them about my visit.

The door had a warning posted that one must be twenty-one to enter. I clutched my purse, wondering if they would card me.

I pushed the door open, and was greeted by glaring white. Fluorescent lighting reflected off white walls and white tile flooring with a brilliance that put Target and K mart to shame. A heavyset woman sat in the center of a round cashier's island, reading a book. She looked up at my entry, and smiled a greeting.

“Hello.”

“Hello,” I said back.

Why did she have to acknowledge me? She should know better. She should let customers slink and dart in the shadows.

“If there's anything I can help you with, let me know.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

I slunk down the first open aisle. What could I possibly ask her? “Excuse me, but could you recommend a good vibrator? I'd like a moderate amount of flexibility, variable speeds, and above all, reliability. I'm going to put it to hard use, and don't want it breaking down on me. Ability to stimulate the G-spot? Why, yes, that would be nice.”

The aisle I'd chosen catered to the bondage artist in
all of us. Straps and cuffs and rings of leather, metal, polyester webbing, and fake leopard fur hung from the Peg-Board walls. I paused in front of a set of large clear suction cups with rings, meant for use in the shower or bath. They looked like something Spiderman might use.

If Louise or Cassie were here, we'd have a good giggle. But just on my own… I imagined being fastened, spread-eagle in a large tub while an anonymous man poured warm water over my groin. Ohhhh…

I scampered out of that aisle, and found myself in videos, in the section devoted to gay men. I picked up a cover at random:
Wild Men of the Forest.
The actors were covered in thick body hair. Why hadn't Wade looked like that? But he'd probably enjoy the video more than I.

Sitting on top of the rack was a lavender plush penis, two feet long, like something you'd win at a carnival. Sitting next to it was an enormous pair of green plush breasts, with a strap attached to wear them over your neck.

I smiled, beginning to relax a bit. The Purple Palace had a sense of humor.

I wandered, and then heard voices. I looked up, and saw a couple in their mid-twenties examining lubricants.

Two women my own age were going through the racks of lewd greeting cards. Another young couple was looking at lingerie. There were no men here alone. There were no older people.

Nothing was as I had expected. Everyone looked like me, only less furtive. There was no reason to be embarrassed, but still I could not shake the urge to skulk.
I felt too exposed shopping for my sexual pleasure in public.

I made myself go to the vibrator section, my steps slowing at the sight of toys meant for boys. There was a battery-operated, latex mouth lined with rubbery stubs like hundreds of teeth. I couldn't imagine any guy having the guts to put his winkie in that. There was a vulva, complete with synthetic curls of hair. Just a vulva. No thighs, no lower belly, no butt. It looked as though it had been cut off a cadaver.

Did guys see dildos the same way?

I moved on. There were plastic beads on a string, for sticking up one's butt, there was a vibrating finger—how lazy did you have to be to buy that?—a hand that looked as if it had come off a mannequin, and there were dildos.

Dildos the size of which I had never seen, and could imagine no earthly use for, unless one wanted to keep one by the door to use on intruders. The sight of a woman confidently holding one of those monsters in her hands would be enough to scare any man away. And if it didn't, a smack on the side of the head with it and he'd be out.

I could see the headline: Woman Subdues Attacker With Giant Dildo! And the article itself. “Police agree that silicone dildos make better defensive weapons than handguns. Their flexibility is reminiscent of a rubber hose, and leaves no mark except a red welt in the shape of the penis head. Being attacked by a giant dildo has become known on the street as being ‘weenie whipped.'”

I was almost tempted to buy one of the monsters, but
the one I liked—it had grotesque, finger-thick veining up its sides—was eighty-five dollars. Pity.

There was no one in the vibrator area, and I made my choice as quickly as I could, getting momentarily stuck over which diameter to buy. Too small, and what was the point? Too big, and it would be uncomfortable. I ended up with one of the bent ones meant for hitting the G-spot, gladly passing by the pink ones with the little latex animals squatting at the base, their tongues sticking out to lick your clitoris as you got off.

Boxed vibrator in hand, the clear side turned toward my body so no one could see it, I headed toward the cashier. The woman was still there, but was ringing up the purchases of one of the couples. I decided to wait until they were gone, and dawdled in the lingerie section.

There was an assortment of cheap corsets that caught my eye, some of them almost pretty, made of white brocade with a ruffle around the top edge. They were even more expensive than the giant dildo. I examined their construction, deciding I could make one myself without too much trouble, assuming I would ever have occasion to wear such a thing.

I looked up at the cash register, and the couple was gone. And so was the female clerk. A pimply-faced guy who couldn't be more than twenty-two was sitting behind the counter, scratching at his erupting skin.

Oh, jeez. It was just like the grocery store. I always ended up buying a box of tampons when the only cashier available was a teenage boy, with his snickering friend doing the bagging.

This was a sex shop. The guy's job was to ring up
sex toys and videos. There should be no embarrassment here, no sniggering, no smirking. I made myself walk up to the counter and put down the box, cellophane-side up.

“Find what you were looking for?” the guy asked, pulling it toward him.

“Uh-huh.”

He turned the box over. “We just got this model in. Haven't gotten any feedback on it yet, but it's a good company.”

Why didn't he shut up? Shut up!

He pulled a basket out from beneath the counter, full of batteries of various sizes. “Still, we have to test the things before we let them out the door. Sometimes they're faulty.”

I stared in horror as he opened up the box and with his bare, pimple-picking hands took out my vibrator and twisted it open at the base. He slid in two AA batteries.

A couple came to stand in line behind me.

The clerk twisted the base back on and turned the speed adjuster. It clicked through low, medium, and high, and nothing happened. He turned it over in his hands, shook it, then squinted at the white plastic thing as it pointed back at him with its shape like a bent finger.

“Should I go get another off the shelf?” I asked, the words squeezed out of my throat.

“No, wait a minute.” He opened the base again, peered in at the batteries and at the lid, then dumped one battery out and reversed its direction. This time it worked, and the vibrator hummed to life.

“There we go. It's a quiet one, isn't it? Good company,” he said.

“Kkkk,” I said, a noise meant to be affirmative. I wanted to shove it down his throat. It sounded like an unmuffled motorcycle to my ears. I could feel the couple behind me watching with interest.

I got out my money as the clerk took the batteries out and returned the vibrator to its box. I was going to have to boil the thing, to get his germs off it.

“You want to be on our mailing list?” he asked as I paid.

“No!” I said. I grabbed my bag and scooted for the door, avoiding the eyes of the couple.

I shoved through the door and out into the brightly lit parking lot. A very brightly lit parking lot, and crowded with chanting people.

Picketers.

Twenty or so women were marching in a circle, carrying signs:

No Sex Shops Near Our Schools!

Protect Our Children!

Do You Want This In
Your
Neighborhood?

Kids + Porn = Bad Idea!

The bright lights were from the news vans. Oh, God. I felt faint.

I tried to sneak by the protesters, most of whom looked like soccer moms, the type whose lives revolved obsessively around their kids. They came to within six feet of my car, sitting there with Hannah's Custom Sewing painted on the door, along with my cell phone number.

I was almost there when a light shone in my eyes and a woman in a Gore-Tex jacket with the logo of a local
news station on one breast stepped in front of me, holding a microphone.

“As a patron of The Purple Palace, what do you think of its being located so near to a grade school?” she asked.

“A patron?” I asked, in an effort at denial.

Her eyes went to the bag I clutched in my hands.

“Do you feel that this store is a danger to children?” she asked.

I looked helplessly around. “Children?”

“There is a school four blocks from here. Isn't The Purple Palace a danger to them? Doesn't it encourage the presence of sexual predators?”

“I don't think I saw any predators in there,” I said, fumbling for my key, trying to stay in front of my name on the car door.

“Kids walk by here every day on their way to and from school.”

“Yes?” I said, finally fitting my key into the lock, not able to concentrate.

“So that doesn't concern you?”

“It's not like they'd be allowed in,” I said, feeling a little braver now that freedom was almost at hand. I opened the car door. “I'll bet the kids see more porn from their dads' stashes than they ever will from this place.”