It really was very lucky that Jane and Lena had been friends for so long. The enduring length and depth of that friendship, forged all the way back in elementary school and lasting all the way through their awkward teenage years, the time in college where they both rushed and were both rejected by the same sororities, and all the way up through Jane's impending marriage, was the only thing that could possibly have survived the mortifying embarrassment Jane felt when she opened Lena's present at the wedding shower and discovered a shockingly massive vibrator hidden behind the bright pink gift wrapping.
"Do you like it?" Lena asked, her voice dripping with triumph hidden behind the very slightest veneer of mock innocence. "I thought it might be nice to have around. You know, just in case." She didn't say anything more, but then again she didn't need to. Everyone in the room knew that Lena and Bob dated back in college, back before Lena 'figured some things out about myself' as she always put it, and everyone understood the very clear implications of giving Jane a gigantic vibrator less than two weeks before her wedding day. It was a humiliating indictment of Bob's sexual prowess and his penis size, and they all knew it.
But Lena had been Jane's best friend long before Bob even entered the picture, and some things you just had to grin and bear. So Jane looked at the package for 'The Brainwasher', a toy with seven settings and a special suction feature for the clitoris and a size that she could best describe as aspirational, whose packaging promised 'mind-shattering orgasms' and promised, 'You'll Never Want a Man AGAIN!', and pretended she found the whole thing endearingly amusing. "Maybe for those nights when Bob's away on business," she chuckled lightly, knowing the beet red blush on her chubby pink cheeks gave the lie to her casual attitude, and set it in the box of accumulated presents.
She made sure to bump a few things on top of it. Just so that Bob wouldn't immediately spot it when she got home. He still had slightly complicated feelings about his long-past relationship with Lena, especially as he was the first, last and only man she had sex with before realizing that penises did exactly nothing for her sexually, and Jane didn't want him thinking that her oldest friend was trying to drop hints that fucking him was going to turn her gay too. Which probably wasn't what Lena was implying. Probably. Probably almost certainly. Almost.
It took several minutes for the festive atmosphere to return, especially for Jane's mom, but eventually everyone forgot about 'The Brainwasher' and the party returned to normal. The group got on with the more conventional bawdiness of a pre-wedding affair, Bob didn't ask her what she got from all her friends and relatives, and the whole box wound up sitting in her trunk for a few weeks as the accelerating pace of planning and the day of the ceremony and the bliss of the honeymoon left Jane too busy to think about every little detail.
And she definitely left Lena's text on read. 'Tell me what you think of it!' As if.
* * * * *
It was a good three months before Jane actually unwrapped the toy from its packaging. Not that she hadn't needed to... take care of herself... more than a few times in those three months--Bob's promotion came just ten days after returning from their honeymoon, and although he of course consulted her before taking it, Jane didn't feel like she could stand in the way of his advancement within the company. Sure, it involved longer hours and more travel. Sure, it meant the bed was empty more nights than it was full, and when he got home as often as not he was too tired to offer more than a perfunctory response to Jane's attempts at conversation. But they'd be able to pay off their student loans in only a few years at this rate, maybe even buy a house together. Jane didn't want to say no to all that.
But she also didn't want to just lie in bed counting sheep every night to get to sleep, either. She tried using her fingers to satisfy the itch between her legs left by her husband's absence, but something about masturbating the old-fashioned way felt a little bit... weird, now that she was married. It was like some naive part of her brain thought she'd never have to reach down and diddle her clit again once she had herself a man, and she wasn't quite ready to face the awkward and complicated realities of marriage to a man who wasn't fully present in her life anymore. She got off, but it always seemed to be a slightly shameful experience.
Then one day Jane found a good deal on a sewing machine on one of those online garage sale websites, and when she went to make room in the trunk of her car for it she was surprised and delighted to find the entire box of gifts ready and waiting for her. She brought it inside, somehow entirely failing to remember the mortifying present buried at the very bottom, and sorted through it all that evening while she waited for a call from Bob that never came. And when she saw 'The Brainwasher'... well. As much as she hated to credit Lena, even grudgingly and in the privacy of her own head, she had to admit she was going to get a certain grim schadenfreude out of replacing Bob with this particular toy tonight. It felt appropriate, somehow.