The Strap-On

The night is warm and wet when we get to the sex shop. It’s both of our first times and we’re a bit nervous but the easy laughter between us dissolves most of our anxieties. 

She is my on-again off-again lover, the first girl I had ever been with and the only person in the world I could convince to come here with me after half a year apart.

Tonight, though spontaneous in the moment, was a long time coming. 

Three years of pillow talk and surreptitious sexts unearthed deeply hidden, gender-bending fantasies that often consumed her with shame and fear. I, as a tried-and-true bisexual, had no qualms about the nature of these desires and together we dreamt of a way to realize them. 

And now we are at the X-Mart Adult Supercenter in my college town. 

I’m sure my teenage-like grinning will give us away as first-timers but the few people drenched in the fluorescent glow of the store with us tend to avoid eye contact.

While my nervousness borders on giddiness, she’s experiencing something different; her body doesn’t always feel like home to her, and sex has been a tricky thing to navigate.

But the time apart has done us good, as it usually does. I had to learn how to love without losing myself; she had to learn how she wanted to be touched. We separately worked on the roadblocks to our connection until we felt ready to take the wheel again. Being with her has always felt like driving down the stretch of Florida highway between our cities - perpetually under construction, but the ride is worth leaving your windows down for. 

This night is an exploration, an affirmation of sorts, a becoming disguised in the shape of a silicone penis – dozens of them, of all different colors and girths and lengths, stacked neatly on the far wall.  

We stand in front of the display apprehensively. I suggest an inoffensive, smooth, purple-colored thing.

“I want something that looks like me,” she says. She motions to a hyper-realistic dick, complete with vibrating capabilities and defined veins stretching up the length, the same tan as her thighs. It’s intimidating, but it’s her, so I agree.

In the car ride home, I lean over and kiss her on the cheek. I whisper in her ear, “I can’t wait for you to fuck me.”

I feel drunk on excitement as I lead her inside my new apartment—a place her body has never touched, though thoughts of her have made a home in every corner.

She moves slowly through the new space, taking in the bits of me she’s never met. She studies the art on my walls, clippings of magazines taped up where appropriate—on my mirror, an excerpt of “Bride” by Maggie Smith; on my bed frame, the cut-out words “a place to do nothing and everything.”

She finally sits gingerly on my bed, the blacked out bag from the shop beside her. I waste no time before straddling her, leaning her back against the mattress. Before, she had made me into a pillow princess, never wanting to be touched herself, never wanting to confront what that meant. It wasn’t a bad role, certainly, but not the role for me. I kiss her deeply and I’m not surprised that her mouth still fits perfectly with mine.

Read more now. Sign up to access our archives.

If you’re already signed up, click here.