Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [35]
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the twenty-first
This morning, Tyra threw another salon. Unlike the Shanny salon, which was rather unceremoniously held around the conference table in the very gray, very dingy, very unfabulous newsroom, today's took place in the dining room, located on another floor of the building and often used for wooing advertisers and other potential money donors. I assumed that the move meant that we were going to be treated to the insights of a legitimate dignitary.
And indeed, the smiling fifty-something woman who greeted us certainly looked the part with her poufy, perfectly groomed hair, shiny lacquered nails, and Chanel suit. The guest of honor was Ms. Toni Sheridan, frequently quoted sexpert and author of Land Any Man in Minutes (and Keep Him Forever!), among others. Ms. Sheridan had arrived at True to conduct one of her popular sex seminars, the likes of which she routinely gives for margarita-swilling Jersey Shore bachelorettes.
Ms. Sheridan began her presentation by asking us to select from a Birkin bag full of dildos.
Yes, dildos. As in mock cocks.
They came in myriad shapes (Huge Nads?), sizes (Six-inch “Executive”?), and ethnicities (Mulatto?). After much lose-lose-situation deliberation, I settled on a ten-inch Caucasian model with unobtrusive testes. Everyone else picked their penises with relish. (Meaning enthusiasm, not the condiment. Though I am sure that if given the opportunity to have their penises with relish, they would have—gamely—done so.) Then we gave them perma-hard-ons by attaching them to our plates via a suction cup base, located under the balls. On my plate, mere moments before, I had put a fat-free muffin from the breakfast buffet, having incorrectly assumed that the place setting was for my dining pleasure.
“Now stroke and pull,” Ms. Sheridan commanded. “Stroke and pull!”
“Hella, hella big fella!”
Tyra yanked on her twelve-inch Black Stallion with enthusiasm, her dainty pearl necklace thumping her chest with every thrust of her fist. Taking her lead, the rest of the True staffers stroked and pulled and stroked and pulled and stroked and pulled. Dressed almost identically in their own twinsets and pearls, silks and pastels, as ladylike as the editrix herself, they resembled an assembly line of horny Stepford automatons. The only one abstaining was Smitty, who instead waved his King Commando model in the air, admonishing Ms. Sheridan for thinking that she could teach him something about male pleasure that he didn't already know.
I was so not cool with performing a sex act in front of my peers. I go to college, an Ivy League institution of higher learning that prints its diplomas in Latin, for Christ's sake. There is only one thing more mortifying than practicing hand-job techniques in front of your boss. And that is watching your boss lube up and jerk off. All in the name of what? Of journalism? Of science? Of saving face in front of a guest lecturer who charges $250 an hour?
Of being game?
I half-heartedly gave the dildo a quickie one jerk, two jerks, three jerks, to show I was a team player, but I wouldn't degrade myself by participating 100 percent. As I uncomfortably watched my coworkers rubbing their rubber phalluses, I started to worry: What if they mistook my inept manhandling as the technique I used behind closed doors? The scenario wasn't that far-fetched. I could just imagine them gossiping about how I clearly had no clue how to please my man. . . .
My man.
My man, whom I hadn't seen all month because I was working here. But why? Why was I working here? Why was I doing this?
I was doing this because it was funny. I was doing this because I could handle