Chapter 82
Our trip to the sex shop was certainly one of the more interesting errands I’d done for work.
I cleaned up in the warehouse’s bathroom and washed the dried blood off my hands. Then I put on a fresh change of clothes I kept in a duffel bag in the trunk of the Mercedes. I’d been carrying it around ever since I’d had to attend the Don Camerota phone call in a rumpled suit.
While I was changing, Mei-ling found a place on Google Maps about ten minutes from the warehouse – Amore & More.
Cute pun.
We drove a fresh car that didn’t have blood in the back seat. As soon as we pulled up to the shop, I groaned.
The logo was a cartoon of the leaning tower of Pisa – except the base of the tower had a ball sack, and the top looked like the head of a cock.
Wonderful.
I parked the Mercedes and accompanied Mei-ling inside.
The single window in the front of the shop was blacked out. As soon as I opened the door, I saw why.
There were two dozen shelves filled with all sorts of crazy things.
Dildos of various colors, shapes, and sizes…
At least 50 different brands of vibrators…
Fake pussies hidden in flashlights…
Displays of lube – water-based, silicone-based, flavored…
Handcuffs, both metal and ones with fuzzy padding…
Feathers and boas…
Whips, riding crops, ball gags, leather hoods with zippers over the mouth, and stuff I didn’t even know what it was.
Mei-ling grabbed a plastic shopping basket and began walking along the aisles, scanning the products and putting some in her basket.
Occasionally she had me translate a label – particularly on the lubricants.
That was uncomfortable.
She worked her way from the front of the store to the back, where there was a large selection of leather and latex BDSM clothes on mannequins.
Behind the mannequins were large wooden structures for sale: medieval stocks, something that looked like a gymnastics pommel horse, and six-foot-tall X’s with bindings for hands and feet.
The saleswoman – a tattooed girl with nose, lip, and eyebrow piercings – came over to help. She probably smelled the big sales commission from across the room.
Mei-ling pointed out a series of clothing items she wanted to try on. I translated the saleswoman’s questions about size.
Then Mei-ling carried the clothes into a changing room in the rear of the shop.
While she tried everything on, I stared at all the strange things around me. There was shit in there I’d never even imagined before, much less seen.
The entire time, I thought about Emilia.
Hmmm… would she like that?
That is, if she doesn’t break UP with me after today…
I thought about my girlfriend with a heavy heart and hoped she was doing okay.
Mei-ling came back out dressed in her regular clothes. She laid several items on the counter next to the basket she’d filled up earlier.
Then she walked over to a part of the shop filled with tripods and lights on stands – apparently for filming. She selected several.
As the saleswoman rang us up, Mei-ling asked me, “Do they have sawhorses back at the warehouse?”
“…saw… horses?” I asked. My English was pretty good, but not exactly fluent.
She pointed at one of the wooden structures along the back wall. “Anything that looks like that?”
“Um… I don’t think so.”
Mei-ling turned to the saleswoman and said in halting Italian, “Anche uno solo di quelli, per favore.”
One of those, too, please.
The saleswoman beamed. “Certamente, signora.”
Certainly, ma’am.
No wonder she smiled. That commission was just getting higher and higher.
When I gave the saleswoman my credit card to pay for everything, she gave me an impish grin.
“Qualcuno si divertirà stasera.”
SOMEBODY’S going to have fun tonight.
I was about to say, No – this is for some asshole we’ve got tied up back at the warehouse –
Then figured that might alarm her.
Or –
Even worse –
Maybe it wouldn’t.
So I just gave her a tight smile. “Yes. SOMEBODY is.”
I just prayed to God that the other guys wouldn’t see me carrying all this shit inside, or I’d never hear the fucking end of it.