Audrey walked towards the sliding glass doors of SFO's Terminal 3 in the foggy morning dampness, her black high heels clicking along at a quick pace. "I don't need to rush, I'm not late," she chastened herself as the doors whooshed open, her footsteps quieting as she stepped indoors onto the carpeted floor. She wasn't late, she was nervous.
Towing her pink rolling suitcase behind her she sighed and tried to not think about what was inside, the small mesh bag causing her current wave of anxiety. Audrey was normally self-assured and confident in her own abilities to talk her way out of any trouble, but having something to hide from the TSA was another level.
She steered her way towards the security line and narrowed her eyes in concentration, examining each of the four stations to analyze the TSA agents stationed at the scanners. Three of the four lines were staffed by men so she ruled them out immediately: "I really need to avoid ending up in an awkward situation," she strategized. She set her sights on the third line from the left, staffed by a thirtysomething woman with blond hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail.
Audrey joined the crowd navigating the lines and veered towards the right, heading towards the woman's station and steadying herself with a deep breath and mini silent pep talk, "You got this, no one cares what's in your suitcase anyway, this is San Francisco." She began loading her purse and suitcase onto the long snaking roller belt leading to the machine. As she focused on getting her laptop into a gray bin and her high heels into another, she overheard the ponytailed woman say to an approaching man, "thanks John, see you in 30," as a slightly pudgy middle-aged redhead took position at the scanner.
"DAMMIT," thought Audrey, glancing around to see if it was too late to switch to another line, but she was already getting near the front and the other stations were all staffed by men anyway.
"I'll be fine, this will be fine," she repeated, but she watched the redhead's face closely and felt unnerved when she saw him nod conspiratorially at a male coworker stationed at the metal detector. The coworker smiled back and she could see them both relax their posture a bit, like they had some shared secret. Then the redhead turned to glance down at his line, evaluating the passengers heading towards him, and with Audrey the only one momentarily undistracted by luggage and shoes, his eyes met hers and she suddenly felt her stomach turn as he smiled a lopsided, joyless grin.
Barefoot and feeling very exposed, Audrey shepherded her pink suitcase along the rolling belt slowly as the line moved, and when it was her turn she took one last calming breath and adopted a faux smile of confidence, "just go, just go" she told herself as she stepped through the metal detector without incident. Her shoes were just coming through the x-ray machine and she started to feel relief until suddenly the roller belt stopped with her pink suitcase inside.
"Fuck," she thought.
She distracted herself with putting on her shoes and throwing her purse over her shoulder but she instinctively glanced over at the redheaded agent and saw his eyes twinkling with a hint of delight. This time his lopsided smile was bigger as he watched his screen. Then he raised his eyes and looked towards her, "any liquids in here?"
"Just a few lotions in the approved quart-sized bag," she answered casually, but he looked at her knowingly and said, "I'm going to have to take a look inside. Please step over here." He brought the rolling belt back to life long enough to spit out her suitcase and another agent took his place at the controls before she trailed behind him to a metal counter away from the crowd.
"I'm going to ask you to not touch anything as I do my inspection," he ordered and she nodded as he unzipped the shell, revealing her pristinely organized clothes, the bag of liquids, and a white mesh bag. He roughly reached for the mesh bag and asked, "anything dangerous in here? Any metal?" and she vigorously shook her head, "no, absolutely not. My bag of liquids are right there."
"I'm not concerned about the liquids, but I did see some unusual items on the scanner. I'm going to need to open this." His tone was affected with self-important authority but his leering gaze revealed his intentions: he knew exactly what was in that bag and planned to publicly humiliate her with it. The sideways smirk of his colleague their way made her sure of it.
But Audrey knew her rights. "Excuse me, I'd like to request a private inspection," she smiled, but he smiled back, "sure, follow me right this way."
What now? She could request a female inspector but they weren't asking to search her body, just her luggage. She couldn't ask for a woman without revealing her embarrassment and she refused to be embarrassed. She was an adult, she could own and travel with whatever adult items she wished. At least that's what she kept telling herself as she followed him through a black door in the wall and into a small but high-ceilinged room. He spread her suitcase across a small silver counter and asked her to sit in a nearby chair next to a larger white table.
His busy, bureaucratic manner had shifted into a slow, relaxed style. He still held the mesh bag in his hand but now held it up high in the air, sneering at her. "Now that you have privacy I'll go ahead and open this up." She steeled herself.
"Can you explain what this is? It seems suspicious because it clearly has some kind of gel or liquid in it." He had pulled from the bag a transparent blue tube with two finger handles at the end. "It's an... applicator," she answered.
"Can you explain its use?"
"Well, it's for lotion. It allows for lotion to be put in hard-to-reach places," she was fumbling to find an innocent explanation, "I have... dandruff... behind my ears and at the base of my scalp so this makes it easier to reach to apply lotion." She nodded confidently.
"I see," he answered, putting it back in the bag, but it was obvious that he didn't believe her, because he had already seen the shapes of all the items in this mesh bag and he was clearly going to savor making her explain each one. "Next time you need to keep this with your bag of liquids since it still has... lotion... in it," he intoned, but she could tell he was enjoying making her squirm. Her only consolation was that she had a flight to catch and this could only go on for so long.
"How about this," he asked, "what is this?" He held up a strand of anal beads with a large ring at the end. "That's an adult toy," she answered coolly, "there's nothing dangerous about that." He smirked, "I guess not, but there are regulations about traveling with power sources such as batteries. And I'm quite sure that something in here has a battery that triggered the alert at my checkpoint. Can you tell me if anything in here has a battery?"
She sighed but gathered up her confidence to reply, "yes, there's a pink colored silicone item in there that has a battery. You can find it in the very bottom." He made a show of peering into the bag and slowly reaching through the contents to get to the bottom, where he found a pink item -- narrow in the middle with two bulbous ends, one larger than the other. "This kind of device can be very dangerous on an airplane, I'll need you to show me how it operates before I can let you travel with it."
At this point Audrey was tempted to just surrender it to TSA and be done, but it had been a gift from Adam and one that she was very much looking forward to exploring with him. Amidst all of their campaign travel and their need to be in different places, Adam thought it would be a fun way for them to maintain their connection while apart. Now that she was boarding a flight to see him they were finally going to be able to play with it in person, together, and she just couldn't bear to trash it.
"Fine. It's a personal vibrator. She took it from him gingerly and pushed a hidden button that brought it whirring to life. She quickly pushed the button again to turn it off.
