To start with, he didn't just design dildos, but the name stuck. Alliteration, I guess. And there wasn't just one apprentice, but a bunch of them -- or so we figured. Women weren't, strictly speaking, barred from the workshop/club/restaurant/God knows what else on the edge of town, but I didn't know anyone who'd set foot in the place.
The ad was small and subtle. Classy, almost. "Hands (and other body parts) needed," it read in small elegant script in a little business-card-sized ad in the Harran Courier, "You know you're curious." And then it gave that infamous address no one talks about, Ehul Hall, and a phone number.
What can I say? A single lady of 40 doesn't get much attention out here. And I *was* curious.
The phone message didn't offer that many clues: "We demand total obedience," it warned. "Don't come unless you can deliver that. This is not an employment opportunity. But you will work hard."
The first available tryout session was on Saturday morning. What's the worst that could happen? I asked myself.
On Saturday, I stood with about eighty other women, ranging from early-twenties to mid-sixties, nervously milling around in casual weekend clothing in a barn-like outbuilding on the Ehul complex. To me, the most shocking thing -- other than how many of us were there -- was how many of them I recognized. Many must have come from out of town, sure. But others: I didn't *know* them, but I'd seen them in the A&P or in line at the post office.
After an interminable wait, a trim woman dressed all in black and carrying a riding crop closed the doors and told us to take a seat on the floor. "Not like that!" she barked, and there was something authoritative in her voice. We listened. She arranged us in a rectangle, in eight neat rows, and introduced herself as Barbara, a roving recruiter for The Designer.