She took the phone, but her eyes stayed on me. “You have dick pics of Glen?”
“Yep.”
“Why did he send you dick pics?”
I sighed. “We were trying to spice up our sex life.”
She closed her eyes slowly. “And that, my dearest sister, is when you know the sex is shitty: if you’re twenty-four and need to ‘spice it up.’ That’s fine for a couple in their forties who have been married for like twenty years. People fall into patterns. Life weighs you down, and you get stuck in ruts. It’s totally normal, and that’s when you do something like that, to shake it up. But at twenty-four, you oughta be boning each other on the hood of the car just for the hell of it. You’re a beautiful, funny, assertive, athletic young woman, Charlie. Sex should be fuckingwild, honey!”
I couldn’t look at her, because I knew she was right. “Just look at his dick and give me my phone back so I can delete the stupid photos.”
She looked.
And burst into hysterical laughter. “Oh, my god. Did he Photoshop in a sun flare?”
I nodded, biting my lower lip. “Yes. Yes he did.”
“Is that, in fact, a shag throw rug he’s kneeling on?”
I nodded again. “A bearskin rug, as a matter of fact.”
“And, correct me if I’m wrong, but…did he…oilhimself down?”
I couldn’t contain the splutter. “Yes.” I had to focus on not losing my shit. “He took a whole series of these. With his professional grade Nikon DSLR, and a tripod, and a timer. He had a photoshoot with himself.”
She swiped. “Wow. I mean, bonus points for going all out, but…wow.” She pinched to zoom in. “You weren’t wrong, though. He’s bigger than I’d have thought. Smaller than what I would consider minimum for me to want a repeat, but I’d fuck it once.”
I eyed her. “So, from your much broader range of experience, where does that fall in the spectrum of average penis size?”
She bobbed her head to one side, glancing at me. “Honest?”
I nodded. “I’m very much and very gladly done with him, so yes.”
“It’s on the small side. Length isn’t that bad, but it’s thin. Narrow. Pointy. Kinda weird looking. I mean, as a penis expert I can tell you authoritatively that isnota pretty penis. But, if he used it well, like you felt good with him and enjoyed sex with him and had yourself a nice little O when you were fucking him, then size doesn’t matter. I’ve had giant dicks that weren’t as fun and enjoyable to fuck as smaller ones that the man in question knew how to use. So, people say size doesn’t matter, and others say size does matter—in my experience, both are true. It does matter, because there really is too big, and too small. But as long as it’s inside the range of not too big and not too small, it really doesn’t matter as long as he knows what he’s doing.” She swiped again, spewing laughter through a cupped hand. “Oh my god, so glamorous. The sultry look, the slicked-back hair, the oiled beer belly.”
“Right?” I said. “That was the end of that experiment. I was laughing too hard to feel sexy when he sent them.”
“Did you enjoy sex with him?”
I sighed, shrugged. “Well, again, I have no frame of reference. I’ve had plenty of sex, just all of it was with him. So I don’t have any other experience to compare it to.”
“But did you finish sexy times feeling satisfied?” She swiped through a few more. “Wow, I mean, wow.” A glance at me. “How often did you feel the need to pop into the bathroom with a vibrator after he was asleep to finish the job?”
I blushed. “Um. I thought I was the only one who did that.”
She cackled out loud. “Girl, you need to talk about sex more, if you think that.”
We passed a group of women who all looked about five or ten years older than us. Lexie hauled me to a stop and waved them down. “Excuse me, ladies, sorry to bother you, but I’m hoping you’ll help me out, here. My sister, my dear sheltered sister, has labored her entire adult life under the sad assumption that she’s the only woman who has ever needed to sneak into the bathroom after sex to finish the job.”
The women, six or eight of them, exchanged looks, and then clustered around Lexie and I, breaking out in the kind of deafening laughter only a large group of excited women can produce.
One of them, a woman of either Middle Eastern or Indian decent, with an exaggerated New York accent, hugged me as if we’ve known each other for years. “Honey, I’d say you’re in the extreme minority if youhaven’tdone that at least once in your life.”
“That is the damn truth,” another woman said—this one was white and decked out in leather pants and a white silk shirt. “My husband left me like that at first, and then I decided fuck this, I’m gonna tell him has to up his game if he wants to keep fucking me, and he did, and now I get off at least once every time we go.”
And then there was a barrage of advice and stories, and I couldn’t keep it all straight. I’ve never in my life heard so much graphic sexual detail.
But, it did help, because I learned very quickly that mediocre sex is normal, and it’s not until you find someone who really lights you up that you truly understand the importance of good sex, and what good sex even is.
