Dite's Decadent Delights, Friday

[myownface]

Sparkle was finally feeling back up for going in to work at Dite's. He had everything he needed in order to get through his shift, which mostly just involved a feather boa and the giant, tailless metal rooster.

He'd get the rooster fixed, one of these days. Probably. Maybe. Meh.

There was a new shipment of vibrators in today, and Sparkle was going through them and sorting them out onto the shelves. One sampler for each model (for testing against the wrist, obviously) and then the rest in a locked cupboard. Some of them were actually pretty neat looking. There was a butterfly one, and that one was shaped like a caterpillar...

By the end of his shift, Sparkle felt a little more like he was working in a zoo than a sex shop, but at least the toys were restocked.

[Open, OCD-free!]

Comments

[suitably_heroic]

Okay, someone was in on Sparkle's day. Which Atton wouldn't have cared about, but he was bored and checking in on the kid beat roaming around the city kicking at walls.

So he went in. Paused on the doorstep.

"Did this turn into the new pet store while I wasn't paying attention...?"

[myownface]

"Only if you really, really like very wiggly caterpillars," Sparkle shared, lifting up a cartoonish-looking vibrator that wouldn't look hugely out of place in a baby's bedroom. It was lime green. "That your kind of thing, man?"

Sparkle sincerely doubted it.

[suitably_heroic]

"No," Atton said, tilting his head, "Though I could give you an address on Nar Shaddaa where you could dump those things. Probably."

[myownface]

"This isn't a Hutt joke, is it?"

Sparkle wanted to think he was catching on to that sort of thing, finally. Only took one adventure stowing away with a bunch of intergalactic dancers, and a lot of terrible decisions made in Atton and Cade's company to start.

[suitably_heroic]

"It's a Hutt thing, but not a Hutt joke," Atton said. "But hey, I suggest you don't think about that too hard."

Because ew. Ew.

[myownface]

Sparkle paled a little.

It was way easier to stomach when he could keep thinking it was a joke.

"... Too late. Oh, god."

Thanks, Atton.

[suitably_heroic]

"You're welcome," Atton said. He walked further inside and hopped up on the counter. "What's up?"

Smooth, Rand.

[myownface]

Super smooth, right there. Sparkle gave him a twitchy little smile, leaning back against the wall behind the counter with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Oh, you know. Island tried to shit itself again a few weeks back, but I'm figuring myself out again after it all, so... fucking score, right? Back to work. Apparently the kid I wound up looking after for like a month back there is a grown-ass woman older than I am, so... weird. Cat puked on my shoes this morning..."

Sparkle's life was super exciting.

"How're you doing?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Had to deal with a couple weeks back too, but that wasn't so bad," Atton said casually. "I've been sleeping a lot. Some clubs closed in Baltimore, I'm upset about that."

Monotonely upset!

[myownface]

"Sounds super upsetting," Sparkle intoned, raising an eyebrow. "Any clubs I know?"

Sparkle had, after all, accompanied Atton to one or two.

He'd only almost been killed the once, at least.

[suitably_heroic]

"Nah, those closed like a year ago," Atton said, peering behind the counter for a minute just to see if Sparkle had anything stowed around back there. "And hey, you're not drunk right now, so I figure your last month wasn't so terrible."

[myownface]

"You kidding? I'm finally starting to sober up again," Sparkle replied, wrinkling his nose. "Anyway, Dr. Lecter would fucking kill me if I showed up drunk to class, as his TA."

It was a possibility.

[suitably_heroic]

"You're still hanging around with that guy?" Atton said.

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

After yesterday, Eleanor wasn't sure why she had come back. Maybe it was to see if the store was more palatable once the initial shock wore off. Maybe it was to refuse to be intimidated. Maybe it was the urge that makes people unable to look away from car crashes.

At any rate, she was here, wandering the aisles and willing herself to try to make sense of all of this plastic and latex. To try to understand the mentality of finding all of this appealing. Was something wrong with her?

Maybe being isolated from the rest of the species had left her without sexual urges. She'd failed to imprint on her peers as a child, something of that nature. There had to be a scientific explanation.

Nothing was coming to mind.

[myownface]

"We meet again, huh?" Sparkle was smirking a little as he watched Eleanor wandering the aisles. "Really, we have got to stop meeting like this, girl. You look just as lost here as you did back at Demon Marcus."

Sparkle was apparently the all-purpose sassy gay salesman.

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

Eleanor gave Sparkle a sheepish smile. "Sorry," she said. "I don't know why it's you I always seem to crash in on. You can tell me to leave. I'm ... I'm not actually here to buy anything."

She'd only purchased the dice yesterday to be polite.

[myownface]

"Just browsing the cute little buzzy things?" Yeah, Sparkle was waving the caterpillar around again. He was kind of fond of that one.

... It was probably going home with him.

"You're welcome to poke around all you like, you know. It's not like I'm going to police who is and isn't allowed in here."

This was true.

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

Eleanor was trying not to think about the caterpillar. Because ... caterpillar.

"I'm not ... I don't think I get it," she managed. "I don't understand all of this."

Okay, that probably gave entirely the wrong impression, so she tried again.

"I know these are all for sex," she said. "That much is obvious."

[myownface]

The caterpillar was cute. Sparkle was going to call him Henry.

"So... what part don't you get? Is it the cutesy toys or just, like, sex in general?"

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"I thought I was starting to understand sex," she said. Intellectually. Thus far, she had conquered "kissing with tongue," and that was a big accomplishment. "I know it's not ... romance isn't a requirement. I understand that. But this is all so ..."

She glanced through the aisles again. "Plastic phalluses," she said. "Clamps that go any place people might put them. Lubricant that tastes like cherries. It all seems so empty. Hollow, and cheap."

[myownface]

"Don't forget the wiggly caterpillars," Sparkle added, helpfully clicking the button on the bottom of the vibrator to turn it on. It buzzed merrily in his hand. "But yeah... I mean, it kind of all is, on its own."

He tilted his head at her thoughtfully, and then broke into a little smirk.

"You have any context for any of this stuff, other than, 'plastic and flavoured?'"

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

That got a blush out of her. "Not ... really," she said. "There's ... a boy that I've been kissing. We go on dates."

She fidgeted a little before admitting, "I ... when I wasn't myself, once. The weekend I was a Skywalker? I ... went into a confessional booth, with someone. For a fix. And it ..."

Her cheeks were warmer now, but she ought to admit this out loud. Maybe Sparkle wouldn't judge her.

"It didn't mean anything, but ... there was still passion," she said. "The thrill of being caught, the sacred and the profane all mixed together. It was dangerous. I'm not ... I'd never do something like that as myself, but that, at least, I can see why someone would."

It made more sense to her than, well. Plastic phalluses and caterpillars.

[myownface]

"Because it's fun, because it feels good, because there's a rush to it all," Sparkle agreed, nodding. "Even if you don't feel for the other person, there's usually something about it, right?"

He nodded to the caterpillar again.

"It's stuff like this that confuses you, then? The appeal of bright colours and things that go buzz in the night?"

[nobloodymessiah.livejournal.com]

"It might just be me," she said, apologetically. "Maybe ... other people come into this store and see the plastic phalluses and swoon. I just can't ... I can't imagine ..."

Sex had been an adrenaline-fueled thrill. Kissing was like dancing a few inches off the ground. But these ...

"It seems ... almost depressing," she admitted. "There were ... there were prostitutes in Rapture. They had dead eyes, and they'd lift their skirts for a fix. That's ... what all of this reminds me of. There's no elegance here, just ..."

Definitely something wrong with her.

[myownface]

"I think... it's a little more complicated than that," Sparkle replied, frowning thoughtfully. "I mean... I know the look you're talking about. I've seen plenty of people resort to that back where I'm from, too. Addiction and poverty make for shitty situations and broken souls."

Even Sparkle could be insightful sometimes, see?

"For what it's worth, I don't, like, come into work and get all hot and bothered when I'm stocking the shelves. It's not quite so simple as, 'I'm gonna fuck this plastic thing,' usually."