All characters are consenting adults and over 21 years old.
*****
I dipped the tofu satay into the red chili sauce and felt the burn flood my mouth. My eyes began to tear and I reached for a sip of water and then more wine.
"Sex," Emily said when the waiter was out of hearing range.
"One of my favorite subjects," I said as I tipped my glass back. I thought about another bottle, but decided no.
"Mine too, when I was doing it."
Emily had sounded rather desperate when she called and asked if we could meet for lunch. Emily was 30 years old when we met that day. She is tall and thin and her dark brown hair just reached her shoulders. She looked anxious when she walked into the restaurant, but after I hugged her, her face relaxed and she smiled.
Emily is my niece, and I call her that, and she calls me her aunt, but we're more like sisters since I am only four years older than she is. There is a large gap in age between my sister and me, eighteen years, and Emily and I have just always had a sibling relationship. I'm not that much older to be a "big sister". Since her mother re-married to a fundamentalist, and my sister has been relegated to the role of subservient wife and home maker, when Emily has a problem, she calls me.
We sat in the small backroom of Thai Kitchen relishing the hot, pungent sauce for the crispy spring rolls and satay. It was a Thursday, and our brief lunch had turned into a two hour event as I poured the last of the second bottle of wine. We had talked and laughed and gossiped about all the girly and family things that entered our minds. I finally asked her what she had wanted to talk about. The lightness left her face and she suddenly looked five years older.
"Sex."
We had talked about sex before. When she had questions about becoming sexually active in high school, we talked about it. When she went on a date with a new guy, I was the first person she called when she got home.
Emily was the mother of a beautiful one year old boy. She and her husband Zach had dated for a year, lived together for another (much to the shock and horror of her mother) before marrying two years ago. Since the baby, there had been no sex.
"Oh, we tried a couple of times. It was like two newbie teenagers in the back of the car, all fumbly and confused, and what happened was not a lot of fun." The last time had been four months ago.
"And I'm as horny as hell and I can't get my husband to eat me or fuck me or finger me or ..."
She stopped and dabbed a tear from her eyes.
I said nothing and held her hand. I asked if her husband had been checked by his doctor, he had been and was fine. They had tried a therapist for a couple of visits, but got nowhere. I asked her if she had tried masturbation, she said she had tried, and nothing really happened and she felt worse afterwards. I asked her if she had a vibrator.
She laughed a deep, sexy laugh and threw her head back. "That is so 1960's."
"Hey, my vibrator is my best friend. Never lets you down, always available, and never says no."
"Nothing happened with my fingers."
"And you won't know until you try one."
We agreed to get together again on the weekend. It was nearly four o'clock when we walked out of the restaurant and toward my apartment. I was glad that we had picked a place close to my home; I could walk, because I certainly couldn't drive after the wine. I hugged Emily as she got into her taxi and I told her I'd see her in two days. The walk was good, the cool fall air felt nice after eating and drinking and I took my time going home. I took an alternate route just so I could enjoy the walk.
The stars must have been lined up that day because about three blocks from home I was standing in front of a new boutique, "Amazing Lace", which had a large sign proclaiming "Open for Business." It was rather a bold step for the store to be located in a rather staid neighborhood in a conservative southern city. But, that is why diversity is wonderful. I opened the door and entered the store.
I wasn't sure what I would find. I've bought my sex toys and lubes online. I may love sex and sensuality, but I'm rather shy in public. I'll suck cock like a porn star and begged to be fucked hard, but outside of my bedroom, I may be mistaken for a prude. The store was a grown up version of Victoria's Secret. There were bras and panties, thongs and g-strings, but all were different, a little more mature, edgier, and not the homogenized lingerie for the masses.
"Can I help you find something? Or just looking?" A tall dark skinned woman, perhaps Latina, maybe Indian, stepped from behind the counter and walked toward me. She welcomed me to the store, as she would her home, and placed me at ease.
I told her what I was looking for and she smiled.
"Getting another sister to join the club! I love it."
She turned and led me to another smaller room and turned on the lights to show a display of dozens of vibrators and another one of dildos. The vibrators ran the spectrum from tiny bullets to thrusting cock shaped devices. The dildos varied from glass pieces of art to rubber cocks with balls attached.
"Oh, my, things have changed." My vibrator is an old style massager with a small round head and a cord. You'll never see one used in a porn video, but it has never failed me.