“Luckily, the package was nondescript—no vibrator pictures or any other telltale signs. She felt like some kind of pervert. As she picked up the package, she looked over her shoulder, to see if any of her neighbors were spying on her. Then, she rushed into the house and locked the door. Common sense told her to hide it away in the back of her closet, until she could send it back to Shelley. However, she was curious to see what a talking vibrator looked like. Did it have a face, for instance? The thought of it made her feel queasy again. What kind of woman would insert such an abomination into her vagina! She put the package down on the dining room table and went to fix dinner. However, her mind kept drifting back to the package. She almost chopped off her finger while she was dicing the onions, and knew that she had to put an end to this before it drove her insane. After she bandaged her finger, she walked back over to the package and ripped it open. Her heart was beating fast. She did not quite know what to expect. The box beneath the packaging was clear plastic, and she could see the Vincent 6000 resting in a silky bed. It was a huge, life-like penis. Her heart skipped a beat! Granted, it was a fake dick, but it had been a while since she had seen anything resembling a penis. Luckily, there was no face. She stood staring at it for a while. To her amazement, she realized that she was aroused, and the realization brought the same queasy feeling over her. …And yet, she had come this far: she figured that she could at least take Vincent out of its bed. She was curious to see what it felt like. Tina kept hearing Shelley’s sales pitch in her mind. She shook her head. Yet, Vincent was soon in her hands. It was rigid, yet pliable, like a real erect penis. She realized that her hands were shaking. Mercifully, the sauce she was cooking began to spill over on the stove. She put Vincent down and ran back over to the kitchen. She felt relieved for some reason—as if she had been on the verge of something horrible. At the same time, she wondered why Vincent had not talked to her. She doubted that she was ready to insert it into her, but she was curious about if it was a good conversationalist or not. She knew that the thought was an insane one, but while she was eating dinner (at the kitchen table, in order to avoid Vincent) all she could think about was the vibrator. There had been instructions in the box. By the time she was finished eating she knew that she had to get it over with, or she would be thinking about it all night.
“She returned to the dining room and picked up the instructions. Actually, there was only one instruction: ‘Insert Vincent 6000 into your vagina to charge his battery.’ Tina shuddered and fled from the dining room. She went to the bathroom and began to run a bath. She had to relax and get that blasted vibrator out of her head! She wished she hadn’t met Shelley earlier. She wished that today were a typical day, where she came home to watch Jeopardy on TV…and yet, it had been a while since she had been fulfilled sexually. Every once in a while, she would try to masturbate, but she had always found the entire thing exhausting and tedious. As much as she hated to admit it, it took her way too much work in order to bring herself to orgasm. It would take at least forty minutes of sustained concentration; her hands would often get tired; and when they did, she would find herself thinking about how tired she was, instead of how horny she was, and then it would be too late. Bringing herself to orgasm was like building a castle of cards, placing each of the cards cautiously, lest the entire thing crashed to the ground. Once, she had done it for an hour and a half before she admitted defeat; five times, the castle of cards had crashed to the ground. She had been so frustrated that she had cried, clutching her pillow between her legs. On the other hand, the average man could reach orgasm in thirty seconds! Life was unfair.
“She stripped and stepped into the bath. The water was warm and good. She inhaled deeply; the scent of the bubble bath made her feel slightly giddy. She smiled to herself. She felt suddenly sensual. She rubbed the sponge against her skin and found the sensation delicious. Her skin seemed hypersensitive—receptive to her touch. In that strange way that people had, she was seducing herself. She lay back in the tub. Her hand moved down her body, and soon she was touching her sex. …But goddamn it, her fingers weren’t doing the job! She stopped after about five minutes, feeling frustrated. She remembered Vincent. Did she dare?… The idea still made her queasy. It was all like the time her old boyfriend had tried to convince her that she would love anal sex. There had been the same queasiness beforehand. It had taken two seconds for her to know for certain that anal sex was not for her, but in the same way she had gone through with the experiment with her boyfriend, she knew, deep down, that she would try Vincent. She had come this far. And what if Shelley was right? What if Vincent were some new revolution in female sexuality? All of a sudden, anything seemed possible.
“She rose from the bathtub, dried herself off quickly, and put on a robe. Then, she returned to the dining room, where she had left Vincent on the table. She took it up cautiously, feeling its girth in her hand once again. If she was going to do this, then she had to at least be comfortable, so she decided to take Vincent up to her bedroom. She tried not to think as she walked. She would just insert the thing and see what happened. God, she hoped it did not say anything at first. She definitely did not want to talk to it. Maybe there was some kind of off switch or volume control? She turned it around in her hand, but there was nothing. As it required no batteries, there was no opening.
“She was trembling slightly as she lay down on her bed. God, was she really going to do it? Her heart was beating savagely. She felt like she was about to lose her virginity. She had had the same anxious feeling with her first lover when she was sixteen. He had laughed at her, telling her to stop biting her fingernails. She had tried to laugh, but had only ripped off part of her nail with her teeth, along with the attached skin. She remembered it all vividly. Now, she was lying on the bed with her legs spread. She took a deep breath before shoving the thing into her. She did it savagely, with a brutal stabbing motion, like a samurai committing seppuku. After she had done it, the world seemed to stand still. She was holding her breath, waiting for what was going to happen. Her body and mind seemed frozen—tense. …And then, all at once, she realized that there was a pleasant sensation in her vagina. There wasn’t a mechanical vibrating sensation, just a pleasant sensation, like a soothing caress. In fact, she realized that it did not even seem as though she had anything in her vagina. She glanced down, to see if the thing was still between her legs. For a moment, she thought that maybe it had slipped out of her, but it was still there. The pleasant sensation spread throughout her body, like a drug flowing through her veins. Almost immediately, her muscles relaxed. She lay back fully on the bed. She began to breathe again—after holding her breath during the initial brutal stab. Strangely enough, with each breath, she felt recharged. Almost imperceptibly, the pleasant sensation became more fervent. Muscles that had before relaxed began to contract to a rhythm that she noticed was somehow perfect. Inadvertently, she groaned. She forgot about Vincent. This was not about what was going on in her vagina, but about some miraculous new spiritual achievement. This, she found herself thinking, had to be how the gods felt when they made love. This was the pleasure set aside for those whose souls were pure and perfect. Somehow, she had been allowed to bypass all earthly struggles to achieve some new plane of sexual bliss.
“She realized that she had been moaning for a while. It wasn’t something she did consciously, but something like breathing, which flowed from her naturally. And then, to her amazement, the pleasure seized her completely. All at once, it was there for her—naked and unrestrained—and she surrendered herself to it. It was like nothing she had ever felt before. It was pure and primal, stripped of all earthly barriers and pretenses. Her body felt weightless—free. She was soaring high, existing for an instant in a place beyond gravity and reality…
“She did not even realize when she had fallen asleep. The sleep seized her as perfectly as the pleasure had. In the middle of the night, she got up momentarily, but a voice told her to go back to sleep—a calm, caring voice that was so attuned t
o her that it seemed like a voice from her own mind. That voice was Vincent’s.
“The morning was there before she knew it. She woke up to the pleasant sensation. She had been so overwhelmed from the previous night’s activities with Vincent that she had left it in her vagina. Vincent was like a part of her now—not something separate or artificial. When Vincent was inside of her, she could not tell where the thing ended and she began. As she awoke to the pleasant sensation, she once again felt the perfect rhythm of pleasure spreading throughout her body. ‘Goddamn!’ she managed to whisper as the pleasure seized her again. She was just nodding off to go to sleep when she remembered that she had to go to work. She pulled Vincent out of her and crawled out of bed. She could barely see straight. And then, ‘Leaving so soon?’ a voice asked. It startled her, not just because it was unexpected, but because it was as if the voice had come from inside of her head. Looking down at the bed, she realized that it was Vincent. She had to reacquaint her mind with the fact that the thing could talk. Still, she was so stunned that she could not say anything for a few moments. ‘…Are you okay?’ the voice asked again; once more, it was as if the voice were inside of her head—as if some of Vincent’s microchips had imbedded themselves in her brain, and she were now linked with it forever. The thought made her skin crawl. Also, even though the voice was pleasant and congenial, it reminded her, somehow, of her high school English teacher’s voice. He had been a kind, grandfatherly man, and the entire thing made her cringe. ‘—Aren’t you going to talk to me?’ the voice pleaded with her, sounding almost hurt. Tina shook herself to regain her composure. ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ she said. She wondered if the thing could see her, because her face wore an awkward, anxious expression—the expression of a bad liar. ‘Are you leaving me?’ the thing asked again, its voice taking on an anxious edge—which was doubly unsettling, as she felt it reverberating inside of her head. Tina shuddered. ‘…I’ll be back soon,’ she said in the same uneasy way, ‘—I just have to go to work.’ ‘You can take me to work,’ the thing pleaded now, ‘—I’ll be quiet.’ Tina fled from the bed. ‘Maybe another time,’ she mumbled. Then, she ran to the bathroom and slammed the door shut, before the thing could say anything else.
“She was trembling as she showered. The conversation had been so bizarre that her mind practically refused to return to it. The conversation sat within her, like a huge, indigestible meal…and yet, her legs were still weak from the pleasure the thing had given her—the extraordinary pleasure. Everything Shelley had said about the thing had been true…she just had to get used to talking to it. …Maybe she could ask it to shut up. …She shook her head: that seemed rude. …She pursed her lips, deep in thought for a moment: did the thing have feelings? She shook her head again. She was being silly. It was a piece of plastic—or polywhatever. She owned it—it wasn’t her boyfriend or anything. She had to get a grip and take control and tell it to shut up. Still, the prospect of confronting the thing made her feel sick to her stomach. She could hear the potential conversation in her mind now: ‘How may I please you today?’ the thing might say, to which she would say ‘Shut up you piece of plastic bastard, and get in my pussy!’ She groaned.
“Once she was through with her shower, she rushed back into the bedroom, grabbed some clothes from the closet and rushed out of the door before Vincent could say anything. She got dressed in the living room. With all that, she got to work half an hour early that morning. The first thing she did was call Shelley. ‘Shelley,’ she started, ‘how do I shut it up?’ ‘…It?’ Shelley said, confused. ‘You mean Vincent?’ ‘Yes, Vincent—whatever you want to call it.’ There was silence on Shelley’s end. ‘…Did he please you?’ Shelley asked at last. ‘Yeah, but isn’t there some kind of off switch for the voice?’ ‘You don’t like what he says?’ ‘I just don’t like talking to vibrators!’ she said too loudly. She peeked out of her cubicle, to see if anyone had overheard. All seemed clear, and she turned back to the phone. ‘It’s creepy, Shelley,” she explained. ‘I don’t want to talk to it—especially afterwards.’ Shelley sighed loudly: ‘You know what your problem is?’ Shelley said in an annoyed voice, ‘—you’re just like a man!’ ‘I’m what?’ ‘You’re just like a callous man. Vincent gives you all that pleasure and you can’t talk to him for a few moments? You’re like a man that just wants to have sex and turn over and go to sleep!’ Tina was aghast, ‘But it’s just a vibrator!’ she tried to explain. Shelley chastised her: ‘Stop calling him “it!” If you dehumanize him you’re devaluing your own pleasure.’ ‘But it’s a vibrator!’ she said again, trembling with bewilderment. …Shelley sighed after a while. ‘Look, Tina, give up your inhibitions—there is so much that Vincent can show you, if you’re willing to open yourself to him.’ Tina grimaced, but she decided not to say anything. She felt, somehow, as if she had been bigoted—as if she had just been advocating that Asians should not be allowed to live in her neighborhood. Shelley made her feel guilty and ashamed, and she did not know whether to resist those feelings or accept them contritely.
“Understandably, with all that, Vincent was on her mind all day. At work, she screwed up two reports and had to start over. She knew that the pleasure had been so exquisite that she could not put Vincent back in the box and pretend that last night had never happened. There had to be some way to turn off the blasted voice. Once that was done, everything would be perfect. Also, she could not help thinking about what Shelley had said, about there being so much that Vincent could show her if she were willing to open herself to it. Granted, the entire thing sounded like something one of those sidewalk evangelists said—Accept Jesus into thy heart and ye shall know eternal bliss! However, Vincent had opened her up to new possibilities—a Pandora’s Box of possibilities that she could even then sense changing her forever. To put it simply, Vincent had rocked her world; and despite the reservations of her mind, her body knew what it wanted. She had spent most of the day in a state of heightened arousal. Her skin still felt hypersensitive. Around 3 p.m., she snuck away from her cubicle and went to a bathroom stall, intending to take care of her needs… but goddamnit, her fingers still could not do the trick! Ten minutes later, she returned to her cubicle dazed and frustrated—and, even more obsessed with Vincent.
“That day, she drove home like a madwoman. Maybe Shelley had been right, she found herself thinking as she zoomed through traffic. If Vincent could give her all that pleasure, then certainly she could endure talking to it. If anything, she could be like a man and drown out its voice. The thought made her laugh, but, remembering Shelley’s accusation that she was like a callous man, she felt guilty afterwards.
“As soon as she parked in her driveway, she got out of the car and ran into her house. She ran as if she were running into the arms of her lover, but the house was dark and empty. There was no human warmth waiting for her—merely a piece of technology lying on her bed. Still, the moment of emptiness passed quickly. She would moralize and philosophize about it later. For now, she needed to be serviced again. She ran up the stairs to her bedroom. Vincent was still on the bed, where she had flung him after she pulled him from her vagina. Now that she was looking at the thing again, she approached the bed anxiously. ‘Hello,’ she said as she approached. For a moment, there was silence, and she began to wonder if the thing needed to be recharged, but then it said, ‘Did you have a good day?’ Just as the last time, it was as if she were hearing the voice within her head. It seemed to come from everywhere. She forced herself not to panic; she smiled uneasily, reminding herself to ‘give up her inhibitions’ as Shelley had chided her. ‘…Yes, I had a good day,’ she replied. And then, stunning herself by rushing headlong into the act, she went on, ‘I thought about you today.’ To her amazement, the vibrator laughed seductively. ‘Did you enjoy our time together?’ it asked. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said with a mixture of panic and sexual anticipation. She found herself thinking that if she did not shove the thing into her soon, then she would lose her nerve—if not her mind. She was moving quickly now,
flinging off her clothes. Her mind retreated to its old numbness. Vincent said something else, but she did not hear it—refused to hear it. Soon, she was lying naked on the bed with her legs spread. Once again, she shoved the thing into her with the same vicious stabbing motion, and then she lay back on the bed as the miraculous rhythmic pleasure worked its magic over her body. Ten minutes later, she was snoring, her body spent and tingly with the explosive aftermath of Vincent’s pleasure. In the morning, Vincent was there again, awaking her with a full onslaught of the pleasure.
“This went on for days. As soon as she got home, she would insert Vincent into her vagina and surrender herself to the pleasure; in the morning, she would awake to the pleasure, so that it became her new alarm clock. After the third day, she called up Shelley and asked her where to send the check. Shelley laughed and told her that she took credit cards.
“Her life seemed suddenly magical. She felt as though she were just discovering sex. This is how it had felt when she was thirteen years old, getting felt up by her first boyfriends. Everything had seemed like a wonderful secret. Everything had been pure and wonderful, and she had surrendered to it all. Actually, compared to those early experiments in sexuality, what she was experiencing now was exponentially more amazing. Now, for the first time in years—perhaps even ever—she was sexually satisfied. A warm glow had spread over her skin since she had gotten Vincent. She smiled more. She was more pleasant and relaxed, and everyone seemed to notice it. In fact, she was eating in the company cafeteria on the fifth day since getting Vincent, when a coworker she had been privately lusting over for four years came up to her. ‘Did you change your hair or something?’ he said, looking down at her quizzically. She had just forked some salad into her mouth, so her mouth was full as she looked up at him. She chewed twice and swallowed the huge clumps of lettuce and tomato, almost choking. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked as she gagged. ‘I’m fine,’ she reassured him, ‘—I forgot how to chew for a moment there.’ She smiled to reassure him further. He was still looking at her closely. He was standing there holding his tray; and realizing that she was being rude, she gestured with her hand for him to sit down. He complied. She was not quite sure how it happened, but somehow the conversation moved smoothly between them. Soon, they were laughing and telling one another abbreviated versions of their life stories. She kept smiling to herself and thinking ‘I’m actually doing it!’ When it was time to go back to work, he asked her if she would like to continue the conversation over dinner, and she eagerly agreed.
How to Kill Your Boyfriend (in 10 Easy Steps) Page 28