Page 4 of Allured By Her

“I guess,” she said, sounding world-weary.

I gave her one of her bags of toddler snacks and started looking through the fridge for something to throw together.

“What do you think about a cheeseburger bowl?” I asked Athena as she sat on the floor of the kitchen with her snack.

“I like cheese,” Athena said.

“So do I,” I said, grabbing a container of hamburger.

Ingrid arrived home as I was chopping veggies and Athena was on the couch singing along with her favorite kid’s streaming show.

“Mama!” Athena said, running across the floor to throw herself at her mother’s legs.

“Hey, baby, I missed you today,” Ingrid said, dropping her bags and picking up her daughter and giving her kisses all over her face as she giggled.

“Dinner is almost ready,” I said as she carried Athena into the kitchen.

“Thanks, I really appreciate it,” she said, stroking Athena’s hair from her face. It always struck me as funny that the red hair gene had skipped Ingrid but had hit me and her daughter so people assumed she was mine all the time. I often joked that the sperm donor she’d picked must have had the gene in his family, too.

“All in a day’s work as an auntie,” I said.

“Mama, I need to pee!” Athena announced.

“Okay, why don’t you go and yell if you need some help. Don’t forget to flush and wash your hands,” Ingrid said, and Athena dashed off. She was potty trained. Mostly.

“Rough day?” I asked as Ingrid pulled herself up to sit on the counter.

“Teenagers are going through it, I swear. You could not pay me to go back to those years,” she said, rubbing her face.

“Amen to that,” I said putting the knife down. “We’re ready here if you want to make yourself a bowl.”

Ingrid got down from the counter and gave me a hug. “You are the best sister, I swear.”

“I’m your only sister,” I pointed out.

“Still, you’re the best.”

“I try,” I said as she pulled out the bowls.

* * *

I was tired when I got home from dinner with my sister and my niece, but I had a package waiting outside my door that I was very excited about. It was the mold for my newest sex toy design. I unlocked my door as fast as I could and ripped into the box, pulling the mold out. You never really knew what the toys would look like until you made one, but this one I was pretty proud of.

I’d started out making very classic shapes but had gotten more and more requests for toys that looked like dragons or tentacles or wolves or horses, or that were inspired from romance books. While I still did my standard toys because they sold, I was adding more and more fun and silly creations. Right now, my sister was the only one who knew about my side hustle. Not even Lark knew.

It wasn’t that I was ashamed of it, I just…didn’t want people to be weird or creepy. The messages I’d get through my website and social media for the business could be a bit much, and even though I knew Lark would be chill about it, I just hadn’t told her yet.

This weekend I was definitely going to take this new mold for a spin and make a practice toy. Very often my testing process led to testing the products myself, which was always fun and informative. I was my own quality control team.

“I love research and development,” I said, stroking the mold and then setting it by the door. Since I used chemicals, there was no way to safely make my toys in my apartment, so Ingrid had given me use of her garage.

I thought of my side hustle as “the night shift” because so much of my work had to be done when I wasn’t at my day job. Ingrid kept asking me if I wanted to see if I could do my sex toy business full time, but that seemed like way too much stress. I loved the security of having a regular paycheck. Plus, making sex toys was fun, and I was scared that if I relied on it for all my income, the fun would get sucked right out of it. Plus, I wouldn’t get to play around with weird shapes and colors that would fail. I wouldn’t have enough room for failure.

Sure, I didn’t see myself as a lifelong barista, but it worked for me right now. Hell, I’d saved up enough for my own apartment, which was pretty fucking cool. It wasn’t a two bed with a terrace, but it was mine and I didn’t have to share it with a roommate.

I grabbed my laptop and checked for new orders, printing out the shipping labels and adding them to my stack so I could pack them to ship this weekend. Once that was done, I could make some replacements and then play with my new mold. Storage space was so limited that I could only make a few of each toy at a time. Thankfully, most of my customers were incredibly understanding and I usually threw in a free little mini toy or something fun for them. I’d recently been playing with the idea of doing a monthly subscription box with mystery toys in it for my very loyal customers, but I wasn’t sure I had enough space. Ingrid had been so kind to give me her garage, but I was going to need something bigger if I wanted to expand at all.

It was a conundrum that was really starting to stress me out.

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