Chapter 6 #2
Aww, thanks for listening! Want to help me with my next blog post? ;) x
My palms go damp.
Jacob:
Forgive me for asking first, but what might that involve?
Jacob:
x
I don’t want to sound reluctant. I just…like to know what I’m walking into.
Tippi:
LOL don’t worry - no nude shots of you… this time! I need someone to take footage of me in a local adult store tonight. You in? X
I check the time. Six PM. I’d assumed shops like that closed early, but what do I know? I’m hardly an authority on x-rated shop trading hours.
And I’m not going to turn down an opportunity to see her.
Jacob:
Yes, I’m in. When and where? X
Tippi:
7PM outside Climax in town. This is gonna be fun :D x
Under the anxiety, I believe her.
I get there early on purpose. The last thing I want is to stand alone outside an adult shop, looking like I got lost on the way to committing a crime. So I loiter outside the gamer store next door, pretending to examine their Magic: The Gathering display.
My attention keeps drifting to Climax’s window. A silver bar runs across the glass with handcuffs dangling from it in every colour: chrome, neon pink, matte black. Simple. Effective.
I’ve never used handcuffs. Then again, I’ve never bought anything that would be sold in Climax. Curiosity uncoils warm in my gut, pulling my gaze back again and again.
Seven o’clock comes and goes. Five minutes past seven. Ten. I wonder if I should worry. Tippi never struck me as a “to the second” type. Time probably is an illusion to someone like her.
She’s so unlike me she might as well be from a different planet, and yet I keep circling towards her.
Maybe that doesn’t have to be depressing.
Maybe you can admire someone’s way of living without trying to become a carbon copy.
Maybe she can be a kind of… north star. It’s still my job to steer my own ship.
I spot her from the end of the street. She scans the shop fronts until her eyes land on me, and then she smiles.
It hits like an electric punch to the gut.
Tippi’s in a sundress that looks like it was designed specifically for her: bright print, tie straps, hem swaying around her knees.
Her hair is up in a high, swinging ponytail, curls bouncing.
The style shows off the line of her shoulders and the ink on her arm, the colours shifting when she moves.
Her legs are exactly as I remembered: toned, smooth, unfairly good.
And somehow, her face lights up like she actually is happy to see me.
“It’s all set up for you,” she says, handing me her phone already open to the camera app. “Thank you for waiting. I had a grumpy RhiRhi situation.”
“No problem. Is she OK?” To my surprise, I feel… steady. Less keyed up now she’s here. Since Pancake Night and the assessment, something in me has gradually unfurled.
“Oh yeah. Nothing an extra story from her daddy couldn’t fix. Shall we?” She tips her head towards Climax, and we step inside together.
A mellow pop track thrums quietly through the shop from hidden speakers. The lighting is warm, flattering, not harsh; it looks more like a quirky gift shop than the dens of iniquity my teenage brain once imagined, and my adult brain spent the past hour dreading.
The owners greet Tippi like an old friend. Lianne and Rush: punk couple, rainbow hair, enough piercings between them to set off every airport metal detector. Their delight about being featured on Just the Tippi is obvious, which serves to reiterate what a success she is in her community.
I hang back, letting them chat, and take in the front room. By the till, there are stained glass mirrors shaped like vulvas; fifty pounds each, and genuinely beautiful. The shelves closest to the entrance are low-key: dice games, edible underwear, novelty cards.
Local flavour stands out, as well, like a display of erotic novels by independent writers, and framed nudes by a local artist. The subjects vary in age, build, and conventional attractiveness.
One of the most striking is a middle-aged woman with a port wine stain and stretch marks.
She’s utterly naked and utterly unashamed, chin lifted, gaze steady.
The painting radiates a kind of calm, content defiance.
“That’s one of my favourites too,” Lianne says, catching me looking. Her voice is warm, matter-of-fact. She radiates the kind of energy that suggests there is very little in the world that would shock her.
“Beautiful work,” I say. And it is. I don’t feel remotely embarrassed to have been caught staring, purely on that basis.
Tippi glances over and gives me a quick, approving smile that pulls one out of me in return. It’s absurd how much I soak up her tiny signs of praise.
“Ready?” she asks the owners.
When they nod, she looks to me. “I might need to unlock my phone again. Just give me a three-second countdown and hit record, and we’ll improvise.”
There’s a new edge to her playfulness, a kittenish spark on top of her usual charisma. I can’t get my tongue to work, so I simply hold up three fingers and fold them down one by one before tapping the red circle.
Tippi’s in her element. She talks to the camera the way she talked to me over coffee: direct, friendly, like her viewers are in on the joke.
Not that she’s making fun of anything, even slightly.
With professional seriousness supporting her warmth, she introduces Climax, sings the praises of local businesses, and puts the spotlight on Lianne and Rush in a way that clearly relaxes them.
In two or three minutes, she gets their origin story: business partners turned spouses, shop born from filling a gap in the market.
It’s not long before she has them laughing about whether working around sex toys all day is good or bad for their relationship.
It feels unscripted but as tight and polished as a BBC documentary.
“Perfect,” she says, nodding to me to stop recording. “You guys were great.” She turns to them again. “If you don’t mind, can I get some footage of the rest of the store?”
“Go right ahead,” Rush says, slinging an arm around his wife. “Best stuff’s in the back.” He nods to the rainbow beaded curtain.
“I’m sure it is.” Tippi curls her fingers around my forearm. “We’ll be back in a bit,” she calls over her shoulder, then pulls me through the curtain.
It’s like stepping into another world.
Shelves line the walls, stacked with more varieties of toy than my imagination could have come up with on its best day.
Silicone, glass, leather, things with remotes, harnesses, restraints I don’t have proper names for.
I can’t even think up a use for some of the goods for sale.
I just know they make me want as much as they intimidate me.
“This place is great,” Tippi says, professional awe in her voice. “And all supplied by local makers. A community sex shop.”
The phrase makes me snort quietly. My amusement dies when I see the purple glass dildo at the far end of a shelf. It’s approximately the size of my forearm in both length and width.
“Bloody hell,” I mutter.
She follows my gaze and shrugs. “Not my jam. I’m not really a dildo person. If I want straight-up cock penetration, that’s what men are for. If I’m spending money, it had better vibrate or suck on something.”
I’m fairly sure my eyebrows hit my hairline. She giggles at my expression and tugs my wrist, leading me around the room.
I realise I’m not just curious about the toys in general. I want to know which ones she likes. How they work on her. Why.
I should have made her come that night. It should’ve been the entire point. Instead I panicked, got overwhelmed by how much I wanted her, and detonated too quickly.
That needs to be rectified. She deserves it, and my pride demands it.
“Oh, cool.” She veers towards a shelf labelled Nipple Clamps in enamel letters. “I haven’t tried these yet.” She holds up a packet so I can see: soft pink silicone clips that look vaguely like clothes pegs. Rechargeable. The text on the back mentions vibration.
“I’ll buy them for you,” I blurt, before I can stop myself. “My treat.”
She squeezes my hand. “No need. But thank you.”
“I insist.” I hope I don’t sound like an arsehole. “I… kind of owe you.”
Tippi’s fingers stay laced with mine. The contact feels weirdly like coming home and going on holiday at the same time.
“How d’you figure?” Her eyes are curious, not wary.
Heat rises under my collar, but I push through. I’m so tired of defaulting to silence. “I really do regret that I didn’t… on the night we… that I didn’t make you…”
“Climax?” she supplies gently, lips curving.
I give a small smile. “Yeah.”
She steps close until we’re toe to toe. When she lifts onto her tiptoes, her mouth is a breath from mine.
“Well,” she whispers, “if you want to invite me back to yours after we’re done here, we can fix that.”
My body responds so fast it would be funny if it wasn’t happening to me.
“Deal,” I manage, just before she kisses me.
It starts soft, then escalates like someone slid a dimmer switch to full. We press together, arms wrapping, mouths hungry for the taste of each other, and half stumble into a shelf. A couple of boxes clatter to the floor.
“All OK in there?” Lianne calls.
I’d almost forgotten the rest of the world existed.
“Yep, my bad!” Tippi calls back, breathless, laughing as she bends to replace the boxes. When she straightens, she looks at me like I’ve just done something unexpected and delightful. “I think we should leave. Fast.”
“Agreed,” I say, still a bit dazed. Wondering what on earth is going to happen when we get back to my place.
“I brought one of Leo’s cars,” she adds. “So I’ll have to follow you.”
“Fine,” I say. “Anything. Just - yes.”
She grins. “I promise I’ll be as fast as I can.”
I don’t know what possesses me, but I hear myself say, “And I promise I won’t be.”
Her mouth drops open; then she laughs, delighted. The sound makes me feel ten feet tall.
I’m clumsy and giddy and more turned on than is strictly practical, but I swear to myself: whatever it takes, I’m going to give this woman the kind of climax that lives up to the name of the shop we’re standing in.