“A dildo, Sara, a vibrator, Mr. Shakes, a pleasure wand, fantastic plastic lover, understand now?”

Laurie knew she understood just by the meek smile and the bright red blush that filled her cheeks.

“I would never, I mean, well, you know.”

Five women stared at her in silence for a moment before Joanne took the reins.

“What do you mean you never? You mean you never use one or you never, ya know?”

Sara just nodded slightly at her question but didn’t make eye contact with the group.

Laurie looked around the bar and assessed that no one was close enough to really hear them before taking up the subject.

“Sara, you never masturbate? I mean, everybody does!”

“Well I don’t, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

That wasn’t sufficient for Tanisha. “Oh, hell no, ma’am, it is not all you are going to say about it. You mean to tell us, your closest friends, that you never, ever get yourself off?”

Sara had inadvertently been pulled into an area of conversation that she was uncomfortable discussing, but she also knew it was too late to turn back now. These girls were notoriously persistent.

“No, I don’t, Tanisha. Why is that so weird? I mean, surely there are lots of people who haven’t or don’t.” She tried to deflect the conversation.

“No, it is weird. Don’t you ever get horny and just need to have an orgasm? I mean for me it’s like a medical condition sometimes, and there is only one pill!”

Tanisha made everyone laugh, everyone except Sara. Laurie could see that she was uncomfortable and decided to try and save her from the attention.

“That’s kind of what I’m talking about. If a woman has a desire and she is even half as overt about it as a man, she is considered a slut. Even worse, if a man ever realized that a woman is interested in a sexual relationship, he treats her like crap. He acts like he has won the lottery and thinks he never has to even be nice again. There have been times that I have seen a guy that was really hot and thought, ‘damn I’d like to get me some of that.’ I had to settle for hoping that he noticed me and was brave enough to talk to me. Then I had to hope that he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut and not say something profoundly stupid that would make it impossible for me to screw his brains out. And god forbid that a woman admits that there are certain things they like to do and if they act on those desires we are whores or sluts.”

Melody had been quiet up to this point, but her comment brought her out of her silence.

“What are you talking about, Laurie? What do you mean ‘certain things’?”

She blushed. It was something that the girls had not seen very often, and they all seized on it.

“Out with it, Laurie!” Sara, satisfied that the conversation had been focused elsewhere, joined back in the press.

Laurie glanced around the prying eyes and decided that she was in a situation of her own making. Like Sara, she realized that she had said something that she wasn’t going to be able to wiggle out of now.

“Okay, you have got to promise to keep this between us!”

The girls all nodded, but no one spoke for fear of distracting her from the impending admission.

“I . . . well . . . I like to . . .”