Chapter 16

Serena

The strap-on had been sitting in the Romantix bag on the chair for four days.

Neither of them mentioned it. It simply existed in the room the way significant things sometimes exist — present, patient, waiting for the moment to find itself naturally rather than being forced.

Serena was aware of it the way you’re aware of a book you’ve been saving. The right moment hadn’t arrived yet. She would know it when it did.

It arrived on a Wednesday evening in late March.

Not dramatically. Not with ceremony. They had come home from the park — Gerald had been in particularly imperious form, reorganizing the entire duck hierarchy before their eyes with the focused efficiency of a middle manager who had finally gotten his moment — and eaten dinner and helped Margaret with the dishes and somewhere between drying the last bowl and climbing the stairs Serena had simply known.

Tonight.

She told Connie after they’d changed for bed. Simply and directly, the way she said most things now.

Connie looked at her for a moment. Then she nodded and went to the chair and retrieved the bag.

They sat on the bed together and unpacked everything with the particular unhurried attention of two people who understood that what was about to happen mattered and didn’t need to be rushed toward. Connie filled the reservoir with the realistic semen, working through the mechanism with the focused competence she brought to anything requiring assembly.

Connie smirked as she qualified, “I’ll have you know, I’m completely winging this. I saw, one of my last year’s roommates assembling one of these for an evening’s entertainment she was about to partake in.”

Serena watched and handed things when asked and felt the anticipation sitting in her chest like something warm and patient.

When Connie had the harness on and adjusted she sat back on her heels on the bed and looked at Serena. She flashed two quick eyebrow raises with a grin.

Serena looked back. “What? What’s going on in that devious mind of yours?”

“Please kneel on the floor for me, will you, Baby Girl?”

Serena slid off the bed and sat back on her heels in front of her wife, who was wearing an erect lifelike penis in her fisted hand.

Connie held it out with a completely straight face. “You’re going to need to introduce yourself first.”

Serena stared at it. “What do you mean?”

“I want you to meet my friend. His name is Peter.”

Serena looked up at Connie’s expression and the laugh arrived before she could stop it — the real kind, the helpless kind — and the last of the nerves went with it.

“You’re terrible”

“I’m practical,” Connie smirked. “Also it needs lubrication and this is how that happens. I’m told he doesn’t bite, but he will spit at you.” She said it with a cheese-eating grin.

Serena was still laughing. She shook her head and looked at her wife and thought — this is who I married. This exact person. And felt the love move through her like something with no bottom to it.

“Seriously, Sis,” Connie said, “if you want real, I’ll give you real. Any guy you’re in a relationship with will want this. It’s just part of the curriculum.”