Page 8 of Perfect
“Just looking,” I say, ducking my face to hide the blush creeping across my cheeks. It’s definitely the mimosas making me blush and not the fact that I’m an adult woman who’s never owned a sex toy, much less masturbated until about a week ago.
“Cool, let me know if you need help. I’m Sienna.” I nod, flipping through an explicit, illustrated book on display and putting it down quickly. I head to the back of the store, picking up a long flesh-colored dildo that I can’t fully wrap my hand around. It’sverydifferent from what I’m used to. Could that evenfitinside of me? What would that even feel like? I set it back down, glancing around at the other items laid out nearby. There’s a leather harness with a hole in the front, a string of silicone balls, cylindrical pumps, handcuffs, ropes, clamps and pinwheels and things that look like they might hurt, and an enema kit.
Oh my god, I’m in way over my head here.
I just want to buy a vibrator.
I turn towards the front of the store and balk at the wall and small display tables full of vibrators. I hadnoidea there were so many kinds to choose from. I pick one up and turn it on, and I accidentally drop it in surprise when it starts gyrating. I can feel my face turn bright red as I hurry to grab it from the floor, desperately trying to figure out how to turn it off. Sienna comes back from around the counter and points to the bottom, and I turn it off and set it down.
“I need help,” I blurt out, staring at my feet. God, I fucking hate asking for help.
Sienna leans casually against a display table. “For sure. How can I help you?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t really ever…I don’t think I need all ofthis,” I say, feeling my face start to turn red again as I gesture vaguely around the store, “but I need…something?” I look up and see Sienna smiling at me warmly.
“We havesomany somethings. Do you have an idea of what you might like?” I shake my head slowly. “No worries. Let’s do a quick run through of what we have and go from there.” I trail Sienna as they walk me through the store, calmly explaining what most of the things in the shop are.
I leave half an hour later with a much more in-depth understanding of exactly how little I know about what I like, a slim purple vibrator, a smutty book, lube, a handwritten list of porn sites, apps, some book recommendations from Sienna, and the distinct, triumphant feeling that I’ve just taken back control of another massive part of my life.
***
I wander through Powell’s a few hours later, killing time before the bus leaves for Astoria by aimlessly browsing titles, drifting through the literature section into the poetry section. Of all the things I’d left in Boston, I wish I’d been able to take the books. My parents had turned one of the spare bedrooms into a library before I was born. It was the only room in the house I could keep Danny from changing because he thought it looked impressive.
I trail my fingers absently along the shelf, and my heart stutters when I see a battered collection of Neruda poems that looks almost familiar. I pull it off the shelf and flip it open, searching until I find Sonnet XVII. Underlined twice in a heavy hand is my father’s favorite line, the start of the stanza he wrote into his wedding vows.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
A pang of grief echoes through me as I think about the copy of this book I left back in Boston, the one my dad bought for my mom on their first date. The spine was broken open to this sonnet, and my mother underlined the entire last stanza in red pen at some point a decade before they got married.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.
I close the book gently, clinging to it as I navigate towards the checkout counter, wondering what it would feel like to be loved like that.
Now that I’m free of Danny, maybe I’ll be able to find out.
***
When I get home from Portland, I stand in the entryway on the ground floor of the crumbling house for a minute, inhaling deeply. Aside from running into him once or twice in the basement when I was doing laundry, I rarely see Roger, and I only know he’s home if the ground floor smells like cigarette smoke. Apparently, he’s out of town right now.
I listen closely as I walk past the second floor, but the rental is only occupied a few times a month, so I’m certain it’s just me in the house right now, which means the water and the radiator will get hot. I let myself into my tiny apartment and sigh, setting down my tote bag and jacket.
The apartment has felt homier since I started decorating with thrift store pieces and hanging my canvases on the walls. It’s still a dingy little apartment in severe disrepair, but the fact that it’s all mine makes up for that.
There are other things that are all mine now, too.
I rifle through the tote bag at my feet and pull out the lube and the vibrator, heading for my bedroom.
***
