Pinkie did the impossible: he rendered me speechless. “You pick,” I managed.

He held up a psychedelic bunny whose nose twitched at the touch of a button. He twitched his own. I laughed.

He held up a flesh-colored, veined penis, so realistic it could have been lopped off a buckskin horse. It seemed lost without a body, reaching for contact like a blind man’s hand.

“I guess we’ll have to try them all,” I said sadly.

Next he offered a variety of harnesses—thigh, pelvic—and some unflattering briefs with strategic holes. “Some girls tell me their boyfriends feel threatened by—”

“But you don’t mind?”

“I’m sleeping with their hard-up girlfriends, aren’t I? What’s to mind?”

I touched his wrist. “I don’t know how to ask this without hurting your feelings.”

“You hardly mince words, Giselle, and I like that. Go for it.”

“How do you manage such a positive attitude about, you know? Other guys with, you know, might grow up to hate women. Or at least be embarrassed.”

“That’s the thing. Women never made fun of me. They felt sorry for me, which was worse. So I set out to prove them wrong. That I didn’t need their pity. That they needed me. I did my homework. Mama taught me you could learn anything from a book, and she was right.”

“A librarian’s wet dream.” Pinkie’s voice filled me up the way his spaghettini might not.

“I studied fashion magazines. I learned stuff like trimmed toenails matter to girls.”

“They should teach boys that in sex ed.”

“It was the guys who laughed at me. In the locker room. So I lifted weights. Then I beat the crap out of the bastards if they gave me a hard time.” He laughed. He held up a Hello Kitty vibrator and winked. “Time to tame the wildcat.”

“Mmrrooww.”

Having the genuine article inside me after the parade of stimulating impostors ended up being plenty fulfilling. It wasn’t exactly the motion of the ocean that mattered, but the depth and rhythm and warmth of Pinkie’s heart.

Reader, I married him. His penny whistle played my tune just fine.

JENNIFER D. MUNRO

on “Pinkie”

I got stuck at dinner a few years ago with a friend’s pal whom I didn’t know. Our mutual friend never showed up. The conversation turned to erotica.

Folks are fascinated with the fact that I write erotic stories. I live in a suburb, work in a cubicle, and keep my butt crack covered, so apparently I don’t fit their Anaïs Nin image.

At dinner, I mentioned to my new acquaintance that I’m not interested in writing about perfect bodies and gymnastic sex, since that’s not my reality. Most days I’m happy if I can still unzip my pants and squeeze in a quickie.