I had told him gently. With the same flaming cheeks I was sporting now, with a vague sensation that I was going to throw up, with sweat pooling underneath my armpits and my heart thundering in my chest.

I did not like confrontation. At all. I’d had to hype myself up to have the conversation for about three weeks, ruminating on it, trying to convince myself that it wasn’t really a big deal. Of course, it was Fiona who gave me the push and decimated my attempts at being in denial, saying “Yes, it was a really fucking big deal, and a real man would welcome a healthy conversation about sex and his woman’s needs.”

“You were direct enough to get the point across that you are not just a masturbatory aid, you are a woman with desire, with needs,” Fiona continued, her eyes blazing with passion and fury for me.

She was protective, even though she was two years younger than me and technically my employee.

“But—”

“No,” she interrupted. “No fucking buts. When you tried to tell him what you wanted, what you needed, he blew up on you, gaslit the shit out of you, and then said that you’d better buy a vibrator because he wasn’t going to change.”

I bit my lip. Shit, he had said that.

I felt cold at the mere memory of the tone he’d spoken to me in, the indifference in which he’d uttered the words. The way he’d tried to spin the conversation, shame me, tried to make me feel crazy, needy, demanding.

I wasn’t really the kind of girl who got angry, and I hadn’t even been angry then, I’d been more shocked… and hurt. Deeply, deeply hurt. To have someone you love speak to you that way took the breath right out of you. Took the fight right out of you.

Well, I supposed it wouldn’t take the fight out of a woman like Fiona. She’d never let a man speak to her like that. Shit, she’d never even let herself get into a situation where she said yes to a man who didn’t care enough about her to meet her needs.

Fiona reached down to swipe some frosting off her cupcake, licking from her finger. “You see, the worst thing about fucking men is they want to do the bare minimum and for us to treat them like gods,” she said when she was done. “They pretend to be clueless when you tell them you didn’t actually come in the one minute and fifty seconds of sex—no foreplay, by the way—then they act hurt and humiliated when you discuss it with them because they’re manipulative little fucks.”

Her dark brows knitted together in fury as she swiped more frosting. I knew better to interrupt her when she was on a roll.

“When really, they’re smart enough to know, of course, you’re not getting off without foreplay and one minute and fifty seconds of penetration.” She rolled her eyes before narrowing them at me. “Your piece of shit ex was not angry about that; he was angry about you pointing it out. Because you fractured his bullshit fantasy that a woman should not have real, visceral needs and desire. All of your fucking American sitcoms with the dopey, overweight, below average, misogynistic husband with the hot wife who they treat like shit tells them that women don’t have needs. We, in their eyes, exist for them. And if we dare to communicate our needs, we’re bitches, our expectations are too high, we’re reading too many romance novels… whatever the fuck.” She waved her hand, not at all perturbed that two customers had just walked in. Two male customers that were now within earshot and looking at Fiona with equal parts awe and fear… as they should’ve.