Читать книгу Spice - Scarlet Smith - Страница 9

Jess arranged to meet her sex-toy expert, Sian, in Forbidden Pleasures, the more woman-friendly of the two local sex shops, at two o’clock.

She waited near the shop and sent a text to Sian, then leaned against the wall to watch the people who were visiting the shop. Many of them were young women but she was also surprised by how many couples went in. She’d supposed that sex shops were frequented by dirty old moustachioed men in beige flasher macs. That wasn’t the case here.

She thought: at the checkout, wouldn’t everyone know what you were into and what you got up to in the bedroom? When she was at the supermarket checkout, she often worried about what the people in the queue behind her thought of her choices. Were they questioning her lack of fresh fruit and veg? Were they wondering if she planned to eat the family-sized bar of chocolate on her own? And she hated buying tampons; hated everyone knowing that the reason she looked like she wanted to ram a trolley into their shins was because it was her time of the month. But how did that even compare with revealing purchases at the checkout in Forbidden Pleasures? That one bought butt plugs … there’s a double ended dildo …

Had she known about this assignment sooner she could have shopped online instead. There was a lot to be said for the anonymity of internet shopping.

A text chimed: Sian was outside the shop.

Compared to Katy she looked pretty normal: thirty-ish, wearing jeans and a flowery smock top, her blonde hair pulled into a ponytail. She didn’t look like a sex expert to Jess. But then, what was a sex expert supposed to look like?

‘Sian?’

The woman jumped and then smiled and dropped her phone in her bag. ‘Jess?’

They shook hands.

‘Shall we?’ Jess asked, nodding her head towards the doorway. ‘Do you come here a lot?’

‘I think I’m their best customer,’ Sian said with a laugh, and then, almost as if to prove it, one of the shopgirls nodded and waved at her.

Jess laughed. ‘No exaggeration then?’

‘Not at all. I love this shop. I spend a fortune here. It just helps spice things up. Sex with the same man for fifteen years can get boring.’

‘Fifteen years? Wow, are you married?’

Sian nodded. ‘Yeah, been together since we were fifteen. Got married when we were twenty. Three kids. Both got jobs. Sex sometimes feels like the last thing we want to do.’ She shrugged. ‘Sex toys help. Are you married?’

Shaking her head, Jess followed Sian to the back of the shop. ‘Not yet.’

Not yet. Was that right? She’d not had that conversation with Max. Not specifically. They talked about a future together for sure. They had already booked next summer’s holiday, but marriage?