The Price of His Silence

1

Pink silicone, seventeen centimeters long and covered in an unreasonable amount of glitter.

Four centimeters in diameter, with a suction base that made it look even more absurd.

The glitter was ridiculous, honestly. It looked like someone had taken a perfectly ordinary sex toy and decided it needed the aesthetic of a school girl’s pencil case.

Parked on the shelf next to it was a wand vibrator.

The smooth, firm head sat atop a sturdy handle, complete with three rubberized control buttons.

It offered ten distinct speeds and twenty vibration patterns, claiming a maximum noise output of less than eighty-four decibels.

I read that last part twice. The idea that I could use it right beside Ryan in bed without him hearing a thing was almost too good to ignore.

And because apparently two solutions to a dead bedroom wasn’t enough, I found myself considering a third.

An ombré clitoral stimulator stood out with its deep violet base fading into a soft teal tip.

A clear suction cap enclosed a tongue-shaped attachment designed to mimic the real thing.

Ryan had never gone down on me in our entire relationship.

Every attempt to bring it up ended with the same flat excuse; he simply didn’t enjoy doing it.

I stayed in the aisle for a while, picking up one box after another and putting them back down just to maintain the illusion of a cautious customer taking her time. There was no reason to rush now. Rushing would only make me look suspicious.

Across the store, a middle-aged woman stood at the far end comparing anal plugs with surprising seriousness, while an employee chatted with a couple near the front registers.

Nobody seemed remotely interested in me.

When the coast looked clear, I slipped the dildo into my shoulder bag, followed by the wand, and the clitoral stimulator.

I kept my expression carefully blank throughout the entire process, resisting the urge to check every two seconds like a guilty teenager.

By then, the stolen goods were resting, concealed by my metal water bottle and a folded hoodie.

If I wanted to get out, I had to behave like I did nothing wrong. So I walked past the first stock clerk and gave him a casual nod, then did the same with another farther down the aisle. I kept myself relaxed and my pace unhurried, even though my heartbeat was beginning to climb.

Still, nobody stopped me.

I was almost there. Less than ten feet from the exit, I could see the pavement outside and the sunlight spilling. I was starting to believe that I might actually get away with it when a hand suddenly clamped my elbow.

“What do you have there, young lady?”

The voice was close enough to send a cold shock down my neck.

Turning slowly while scrambling to pull together a plausible excuse, I stopped dead, my gaze landing on the chest of a heavy-set man in his fifties.

He possessed the build of someone who had traded his younger, leaner frame for the comfort of good food and lazy weekends.

The buttons on his shirt pulled tight in his midsection, his arms stretching the short sleeves.

I darted from his blurry name tag up to the sturdy line of his jaw, his nose, and finally his eyes.

The hit of recognition wiped everything clean out of my head.

“Mr. Atwood?”

Ryan’s father stood over me, one dark brow arched high.

The silence was suffocating, made worse by the fact that of all the people who could have caught me in this city, I had somehow managed to pick the man I least wanted to see.

Not only was he my boyfriend’s father, but he was standing there in a security uniform, which meant he had apparently been watching me long enough to know what I’d done.

Ryan talked about his dad all the time, usually with some combination of irritation and reluctant affection, but his job had never once come up in conversation. If I’d known he worked loss prevention at a sex store, I would’ve gladly stayed sexually frustrated and kept my dignity intact.

“You work here?” I asked, gulping. The question came out small.

“You sound surprised.” He crossed his arms, settling into an easy stance that made his broad frame look even more imposing.

The weight of my bag felt twice as heavy, as if its contents were burning right through the fabric. “I wasn’t doing anything.” I curled harder around the strap, and forced myself to hold his eye contact, hoping it would keep me from becoming more suspicious.

“C’mere.” He glanced down at the bulging bag.

“Mr. Atwood, I really need to get going.”

“You’re not going anywhere just yet.” His tone wasn’t loud, but it possessed an authority that rendered any argument useless.

Taking hold of my waist, Mr. Atwood stepped to my left, using his size to block my path to the exit.

Shoppers brushed past us, and every step deeper into the building made my stomach tense.

Getting caught was bad enough, but being paraded through aisles of dildos by my maybe-father-in-law was a complete nightmare.

“Where are we going?” I whispered, keeping my head down.

“Somewhere quiet.” His fingers dug a little firmer when I tried to slow down. “I don’t want to make a scene out there any more than you do, so we’re going to step inside and talk like adults.”

The room he led me into was a cramped, sterile back office that looked like it had been assembled from whatever furniture the rest of the store didn’t want.

A scuffed wooden table occupied the center, flanked by two mismatched chairs, while an old vending machine hummed loudly in the corner.

The bare concrete seemed to hold onto the cold, making the little room feel even more nerve-wracking.

Mr. Atwood pulled the door shut, the latch engaging with a click that sounded terrifyingly final. “Sit down.” His work boots thumped as he walked to the far side, pulling out one of the chairs for me.

“Mr. Atwood, I swear to you, I wasn’t doing anything.” I sat down, planting my palms on top of my denim in an attempt to hide its tremor.

“You’ve said that already.”

“Because it’s the truth. I swear!”

“Is it?” He reached out, grabbed my tote, and lifted it right off.

He set it onto the desk with a thud. Unzipping the top compartment, he rummaged inside and raised the first box, taking his time to examine it from every angle before setting it down without a word.

He repeated the process with the others, maintaining total composure while I sat frozen, wishing I could sink straight through the floorboards.

“Care to explain what these are for?” He focused on the collection of sex toys sitting between us.

“They’re not mine. They’re for… uh… Daisy,” I lied, a random name slipping out in a rush. “Daisy asked me to pick them up for her. I was just holding onto them while she finished shopping.”

“Daisy.”

“Yes. My good friend, Daisy.” I let out an obviously fake laugh, immediately regretting how ridiculous it sounded.

“And Daisy asked you to walk past the registers and out the front door with two hundred dollars of unpaid merchandise?”

“I wasn’t stealing them. I was going to pay.”

“You were two feet from the exit, Grace. You’re not very good at this.”

That shut me up. He’d seen straight through me, and judging by the look on his face, there wasn’t a single version of the story I could come up with that he was going to believe.

“Okay… You caught me.” I raised my hands in surrender. “Just please don’t tell Ryan.”

Mr. Atwood let out a dry huff, the kind that made it obvious he was waiting for me to admit there was more to the story.

I narrowed my lips together, refusing to give him any more details than I already had. There was no way I was going to sit there and explain exactly why I’d ended up in that store, especially not to him.

But he seemed perfectly happy to let me squirm, taking his time while he adjusted his belt, pulling the cotton of his trousers taut over the outline of his bulge, at last breaking the silence.

“Is my son giving you a reason to need these?”

“What?” The question hit harder than it should have. It caught me completely off guard.

“The toys. Are you trying to tell me Ryan isn’t taking care of things at home?”

“That’s not—”

“You don’t have to lie to me again, Grace.” He softened, losing some of his professionalism. For the first time, he sounded less like someone questioning a shoplifter and more like someone genuinely worried about my sexual well-being.

“It’s complicated, Mr. Atwood. I don’t even know how to explain it. I’ve just been frustrated for a really long time. Ryan’s wonderful, and I love him, but…”

“But?” He lowered his face, drawing a little closer for me to see the faint stubble along his jaw.

I drew in a slow breath, meaning to collect myself, but somehow that only made it worse.

Once I started, everything I’d spent years keeping to myself seemed to come rushing up at once.

Maybe it was the way he asked, so matter-of-factly, like there was nothing shameful about saying any of it out loud.

Whatever the reason, I couldn’t seem to stop.

“The sex has just never been good.” I looked down, unable to face him.

“Does he have any idea?” He folded his arms and studied me, looking far too much like a sex therapist.

“No… How could I even tell him?” I shook my head. “I mean, what am I supposed to say? ‘You’re a great guy, Ryan, but sex with you does absolutely nothing for me’? I can’t say something like that without destroying his confidence.”

“So your solution to a communication problem was to shoplift a variety of sex toys?” He let out a cough-like laugh.

“Put it like that and it sounds awful. I was going to pay for them,” I insisted weakly. “Eventually.”