Chapter 6: Aisle Six

I left work like a woman fleeing a small crime scene, which, given the bathrooms I had already desecrated that day, was not far off.

The rationalization arrived fully dressed and pretending to be an adult. If I was going to sleep with Tyler again, I could not risk him passing something to me and then me passing it to Mike. Tyler had never been a one-girl kind of guy, at least not in any version of him I had watched for three years. I had no proof he was seeing anyone else on nights I wasn’t in his bed. I also had no proof he wasn’t. Hope wasn’t protection, and vibes weren’t a lab result. Responsible. That was the word I pinned to the front of the thought so it would not look like what it also was: I was about to feed another man the meal I had made for the man I loved, and I wanted the betrayal to come with a safety seal. I needed to set some ground rules and parameters.

Suppose he complained about a condom; well then, tough cookie. No nookie.

I said it in the car. Out loud. It sounded like something Amber would embroider on a pillow.

I did not enjoy sex with a condom. I disliked the smell, the taste, the feel, the little rubber pause that made with almost every movement. I still turned into the CVS parking lot as if the building had summoned me personally.

The condom aisle had changed since the last time I had been a person who bought them. I stood in front of the wall and felt my soul leave my body.

There were so many.

Not “many”, not “a lot”, no, there was an absurd surplus of contraceptives, an indictment on humanity. I counted twenty-seven varieties of Trojan’s alone before I lost count and had to start over. Magnum, Magnum Thin, BareSkin, Ultra Thin, Raw, Intense, Ecstasy, Her Pleasure, His Pleasure ... I assumed they were not making a box called Mutual Administrative Pleasure, which was a shame, because that was the only energy I had left. Lubricated, extra lubricated, spermicidal, ribbed, ultra ribbed, studded, warming, climax-delay, something that promised to feel like nothing, something that promised to feel like more, something with a photograph of a couple who had clearly never stood under pharmacy lighting questioning their life choices.

It was as bad as the feminine hygiene wall, no worse, even. Men joked about how many kinds of pads there were. Men had clearly never been sent to buy a tiny raincoat for an unmeasured size and then been asked to select a lifestyle.

Worse than the options: the anti-theft screen. Every box locked away behind a plastic shield like the store expected a riot over latex & lambskin. There was a red call button to summon assistance. A red call button that said, in effect, “please send a stranger so I can announce my evening plans.”

I was already late. I was already nervous. I was already a woman who had spent lunch squatting over a phone for a man to see everything I had to offer. What additional shame could I possibly know at this point? Yet the universe was cruel, and I now had to press a button to summon customer service for sex.

I pressed it.

Then I tried to read the boxes through the screen without the glasses I had left in the car, like an idiot. Thin, Ultra Thin, BareSkin, Raw. They all claimed the same miracle ... You would barely know it was there, except you would, because you had paid $17.99 to know it barely. I leaned in until my nose nearly touched the plastic, squinting at microscopic charts that might as well have been written in nautical flags.

I did not hear him coming.

“Hello, miss, can I help you?”

The voice was high and close and behind me. I jumped so hard I made a sound I would like stricken from the record. A small scream. Not a movie scream. A raccoon trapped in a garbage can type of scream.