Giving the lobby a closer scrutiny, I grimaced, taking in the seventies shower curtain knockoff wallpaper. I hadn’t expected much after fleeing Cutesville, but this was, um, well... the place looked like we took on clients by the hour. Bet there were a few bizarre winkie personalities behind these walls. I snorted, but I couldn’t help it. Nobody deserved to work in a place like this. My smile faded.
Hello, Nobody.
Gloria pulled her gum out, twirled it around her finger, and talked at the same time, making me smile for the first time today. God love her. But then I made the mistake of breathing. Stale cigar smoke. Wet dog. Musty curtains. Please, somebody, anybody, gag me with anything that would put me out of my misery. I blew my nose and my eyes watered, making me blink back tears. Gloria hung up the phone, so I walked over to join her as I wiped my eyes.
“Aw, don’t cry, sweetie. We’ll figure this out, I promise.” She patted my hand.
“Oh, I’m not crying. I’m dying. I have to find a way to pull this off.”
She crossed her arms over her silicone double D-cups and leaned back as though she were settling in for a juicy story. “Pull what off, exactly?”
“My final project. I have to research how the size of a man’s Mr. Winkie affects his personality.”
Gloria blinked. “You’re kidding. What kind of class are you taking, anyway?”
I hesitated, because I knew what Gloria would say, but there was no avoiding it. “Sex Therapy,” I said, feeling a surge of heat flood my ears.
“You can’t even say the word, yet you signed up for some sex class?” She laughed long and hard.
Wincing, I spoke through her chuckles. “Yeah, yeah, I know.” Going to see a shrink would have been so much easier.
“Lucky you.”
“Yay, lucky me. Any ideas on how I do this?”
“Oh, I get it. Your winkie doesn’t have a personality. You wanna know about its owner’s personality. You had me worried for a while.”
I had her worried?
“Well,” she leaned forward, “you could start by sleeping around. Ya know, have a little fun in the name of science... with no strings attached, of course, just a few colorful, ribbed, glow-in-the-dark condoms.”
The heat crept from my ears to the rest of my face. “Or not.”
“Just a thought. But if you don’t wanna add a little spice to your life--which you look like you could use, if you ask me--you could just check out his shoes.”
“His shoes?”
“Yeah, his shoes. You know what they say.”
“Apparently, I don’t.”
She huffed out a breath. “That the size of a man’s feet is a good indication about the size of his--”
I held up a hand. “I get it. Except that’s just a myth, and I don’t want to sleep with anyone.”
“Your choice, but turning the table on the opposite sex sounds like a good time to me, chica.”
She had a point. Using a man for a change instead of being the one used had its merits. But in my case, it never worked out that way. “Trust me, sex and I do not get along. Been there, done that, wound up a porn star.”
“Oh, honey, that’s a topic for another day. I can only deal with one problem at a time.” She took out a nail file, groomed her acrylic fingernails, and then brightened. “Can’t you just look it up, or something? There has to be a ton of information on the Internet.”
“I could. And I have. Not a pretty picture. Have you seen the kind of websites a search on ‘you-know-what’ size brings up?” I shuddered. “Besides, my professor insists we interview live subjects for our projects. For me, that means men of different sizes with different issues. Then I have to write a paper on it and present it to the class.”
“So if you don’t sleep with them, how are you gonna know who to interview? You got x-ray vision, or something?”
“I wish. See why I have a problem? Can you imagine the reaction I’ll get if I start asking every man I meet, ‘Gee, what size produce is your Mr. Winkie: a pickle, a cucumber, or a zucchini? And by the way, is Mr. Winkie giving you any problems these days?’” I was a regular furnace right about now, probably hot enough to heat the entire motel.
“A pickle’s produce?” Gloria scrunched up her face.
I fanned my face as I answered her, “Technically, no, but it starts out as a vegetable. And I couldn’t think of any other produce small enough, so a pickle it is.”
“Works for me.” She shrugged.
I blew out a breath and ran a hand through my pin-straight hair, but it fell right back into place. Darn genetics. I shook my head to focus. My hair was the least of my problems. “We all have different sex-related topics to cover, but I swear I got the worst one in the known universe.”