The Strange-tasting Soup Gadget

Sophia did try her best to sleep on it. The invitation to Fastidio's opening, that is. But she couldn't—literally. In the days and nights that followed, Sophia walked the school's halls and went through the motions of daily life in a sort of daze, dreaming about the way Brad smiled during those few hours by the pool. It didn't help that for the rest of that school week, Brad was absent—she'd often stare wistfully at his empty chair on the fourth row, sighing like a damsel in distress. She didn't even tell Derek—not even mention—anything about Brad's extravagant "token of appreciation." Heck, Derek doesn't have an idea who Brad is. She'd make love with Derek at night, with her usual porn-star-wannabe gyrations and gusto, and she'd increasingly find it necessary to stop mentioning Brad's name in the throes of orgasm. Because more and more, the whole sex fantasy thing about saying other guys' names while Derek pounded her felt sinful, as if she were doing something worthy of guilt. Not that Derek suspects anything—he's still the old insanely generous, if not totally freaky, husband who gets turned on with the idea of his wife with other men. Sophia is starting to feel a change in her loyalty, a shift in the nature of her desire, which she finds disturbing. Which is why Brad's invitation—a simple invite to the opening night of some local club, a mere show-up-and-leave thing—feels thickly entangled with the tendrils of complications.

Then there's Carol Smith to deal with everyday—the teachers' lounge, which used to be a haven of harmless gossip and relative calm, has become toxic. Carol's intensifying bitterness has sown poison among the teachers, causing an unspoken, unmentionable divide: those who are loyal to Carol, those who feel sorry for Sophia, and those who simply didn't give a fuck about the whole issue yet would still love to see a good old cat fight.

Even now as Sophia thinks about whether to tell Derek the "development" between her and Brad, she cannot muster the guts as Derek slaps on her plate his famous bacon and eggs. "Something's eating you?"

Sophia makes a shit-eating smile. "Missed your eggs."

"Oh, sexual innuendo!" A naughty gleam in Derek's eyes.

"What?" Sophia bolts out of the mist of her daydream. "No, the real eggs, I mean. But yes, also your eggs."

They both laugh. After breakfast, the sex in the shower is furious, animal. Then Derek is gone, off to hammering out the touchy details of what he calls "the merger of a lifetime." Sophia is again left alone with her thoughts. The hours push her against a wall, compelling her to make a decision. Fastidio's opening is tonight. The very thought makes her heart skip a beat because it means two things: one, she'll be seeing Brad after almost a week of his much-felt absence; and two, the night brims with possibilities. What, in all honesty, could possibly go wrong?

She has never been to a club opening, especially the posh, exclusive kind, and she doesn't know what to expect. At the back of her mind is what makes girls worry every second of their lives: what to wear? There may be other girls, other ladies more fashionable than she could ever be at the club, and Sophia feels compelled to compete with them. She keeps telling herself who cares, who gives a flying fuck, she'll show up, say hi to Brad, sip cocktail, then leave without saying goodbye—just what mysterious hard-to-get women do in movies, right? For example: what would Katy Perry do? Or maybe, as a coup de grace to this raging confusion, how about spending the night at home, watching 'Seinfeld' reruns? That's an option as palatable as staring at paint dry, however.

She decides to wear something simple—nothing that says "desperate for a shag," nothing flashy, just some black tube with matching heels and a classic black clutch bag. But that is for later—right now, here are the few hours to contend with, the few remaining hours when she might still change her mind and back out. She paces the house distractedly. She goes out in the garden and tries her best to focus on the green, on the flowers. She feels silly after a while: why is she trying to play a Disney princess? Maybe the birds would begin speaking to her in sing-song and weaving her a gown. Back in the bedroom, rummaging through her closet, an old plastic box fell out as she reached for a pair of shoes: her dildo collection. She hasn't seen these toys for a while, given how fulfilling her sex life has been. Absently, she takes them out one by one: contraptions made of latex resembling an actual penis. But her old favorite is a stylish silver vibrator, a gift from Derek during the early days of their marriage, supposedly to help her come to terms with her own orgasms. Sure, the huge, more life-like black latex cock filled her up like crazy, but the silver dildo, with its clean contours, has a clinical sense to it, as if she's making love with herself with no strings attached, with the feather lightness of an inconsequential afterthought. Whenever she needs dirty, animal sex, there's Derek for that. But for those moments when she just needs a nice release, sort of like an appetizer, the silver dildo would always do the job in a flourish.

Now it feels good to once again hold it in her hands—it gives her a deep sense of surety. She slips off her panties and lies on her back on the bed. Gazing at the ceiling, conjuring images involving Brad and her doing unspeakable things at a back room at Brad's newly opened club (she constructs it all from the movies she has seen), she guides the dildo slowly toward its watering hole. Gliding along her inner thigh, leisurely circling around her labia, on her clit, then slowly sliding it all in. It dives likes a thirsty sailor, and surfaces just long enough to get some air, then again vanishes into her bald, cleanly shaven pussy. The wet sounds the dildo makes as it pummels in and out of her pussy pulls her quickly toward an orgasm. Within minutes—how fast Brad brings her to orgasm—she's coming. The light exploding at the end of a tunnel. A forceful, contracting, outward blossoming. A whiteness in her mind that shall soon come. It's here, coming, rapidly, hungrily. It's here, now. In and out, grinding, now. In and out, now now now now...

But the doorbell dings, and her heart coils up. She could only think of one suspect: Dolph Lundgren again? She rushes to the door, her mind still not in its right place. And no: it's a skinny Girl Scout, dragging behind her what looks like a huge box of cookies, the braces on her teeth reminding Sophia of the days when she thought boys were all about snotty mischief.

Braces chirps. "Good afternoon, ma'am!"

"Yes?"

"Would you like some cookies? The proceeds are for the benefit of children with cancer." Braces flashes a big and wide public relations grin that somehow makes her look like she's on the edge of tears.

Sophia senses the beginnings of a headache. "I'm sorry, but..."

Braces points at Sophia's hand. "What gadget is that?"

To her shock, Sophia realizes the dildo is still in her hand, dripping wet with her juice. Words scamper in all directions. "I, uhh, I'm...I'm trying to make a special soup, and this is, uhh, this is...a device that's supposed to, uhh, make it taste better."

Braces' eyes widen. "Does it work?"

Sophia shrugs, perhaps too theatrically to be convincing.

"It's still dripping with soup." Braces's looks closely at the dildo, then her face lights up by an idea only a Girl Scout could come up with. "Let's have a deal, ma'am. I have an excellent palate. See?" —she points to a badge on her chest that says "Best Camp Cook"—"So will you buy my cookies if I taste the soup and tell you if it's good or not?"

Oh, God, no. Sophia's mouth opens but the protest dies down in her throat as she sees Braces already grabbing the dildo. The next thing she sees is Braces licking the dildo's tip with the facial gravitas of a seasoned gourmand. The Girl Scout's face scrunches.

"I think it's a bit salty."

Sophia bursts out in laughter. The Girl Scout pouts in confusion, unsure of what she did wrong.

"Alright, give me a box of those," Sophia says.

A rainbow shines on Braces's face. She digs up a box of cookies and happily hands it out to her customer.

Sophia closes the door behind her, holding the box of cookies, stifling the tail-end of her laughter. This is a surreal day. She feels sorry for the girl, but what could she have done in the face of such "culinary" enthusiasm? Also, this whole thing, this straddling the fence of indecision, is utterly silly. She's so turned on by the mere thought of it, so why not just go out there and take what you want? Why all the stupid fuss about a simple invitation? She's going there tonight, and she's going to shine brighter than an exploding sun.

But first things first: a long, relaxing soak in the tub.