‘We bury them. We have a graveyard for bad dildos.’
‘Really?’ she utters, aghast.
‘No.’
The room titters and I’m relieved they get my dry sense of humour.
SGR holds the vibrator to her sister’s face, who shrieks a little and bats it away like it may blind her. Naturally, this doesn’t deter SGR in any way.
‘So, can I ask whose idea was this? Whose brainchild?’
‘Well, it certainly wasn’t mine,’ Scarlett utters. You don’t say. ‘I just manage her affairs, I make sure she doesn’t hand her money over to crackpot ideas and schemes. I think this is a bit out there, but let’s see.’
SGR side-eyes her sister. The relationship has shades of Sonny and myself about it: me reining in his random ideas, telling him to come down off the ceiling.
‘Look,’ I say, ‘we have many people come to us looking to collaborate, but there was a reason we wanted to work with you. It was about the message you wanted to send to young people, to enjoy sex, to have fun sex and get in touch with their bodies. I liked that a lot.’
SGR grins at me, a bit more sincerely than she has so far, staring over at her sister.The business person just vindicated me.‘I guess I was thrown into the public eye quite quickly and everyone is obsessed with my relationships, my sexuality, my sex life. It’s not right that I’m defined by all of that. It’s not right that any girl is defined by that.’
Despite her ridiculous bobble earrings and electric blue-winged eyeliner, I like that there’s a mature and measured reasoning behind it all.
‘I’m all about having sex for me… Female empowerment…’ she says, looking to her phone. I think she just posted herself saying that. I hope I’m not in shot.
‘So let us help you make sex toys that will work but also be on brand and send out all these messages to the world,’ I confirm.
‘I want girls to know they don’t need a man or a woman to have an orgasm, they can do that themselves,’ SGR says with some confidence in her tone. Charlie can’t work out if that’s her saying she’s not really interested in him.
‘Well, this will help then,’ I add, picking up the dildo. ‘Good sex is about positioning. This will penetrate at an angle that hits the G-spot a little sweeter and also has an attachment which can help with clitoral stimulation.’
Charlie creases his brow at this point, mainly because I’ve also drawn a scrappy picture on the paper in front of me. Take notes, kid. Take notes.
Scarlett looks at me weirdly. ‘But G-spots don’t exist, do they?’
SGR swings her head around in disbelief, putting a hand to her forehead. ‘Scar… seriously?’ She looks back to me to explain things.
‘Well, it depends if you’ve been looking for it? Our experts believe there is a spongier spot inside your upper vaginal wall that surrounds the urethra. The cells are more sensitive here and when activated properly, they can help you achieve quite an intense orgasm.’
Activated? I make it sound like it’s accessible via a special code. I’m also aware that while I explain this, my fingers are making a come-hither motion that Charlie is imprinting into his mind for future reference.
‘Have you never come that way?’ SGR asks her sister.
Scarlett shakes her head in bemusement.
‘See, this is the problem. This is the stuff girls must learn. How have you come this far in life and not had a vaginal orgasm?’ SGR asks.
Her sister pushes her shoulder at that point.
Charlie looks like he’d rather be anywhere else, but I’m not sure if it’s because of this sibling fight or the fact he knows he’s not done that much for a woman before either.
‘I have orgasms. I just get them in a different way,’ Scarlett says defensively.
‘I really hope Jay is giving you proper orgasms,’ her sister adds.
‘Can you leave my husband out of this, Shug? He does just fine.’
‘Fine? If you say so. But sex should be more than just “fine”. Does he still go down on you?’
Charlie and I let them rally this argument in front of us. We’re only strangers they’ve literally just met. Where’s Michelle with that Diet Coke? I mean, SGR has a point. No one should be having mediocre sex but have some sympathy for your sister too. She can take that dildo when we’re done. Have a tour of this place, on the house. I’ve taken things home from here that I’ve pretty much been on hot dates with, we’ve shared a bath by candlelight, the orgasms could have inspired poetry.
