fandomtownies | Dite's Decadent Delights [Tuesday]

Entry tags:

Dite's Decadent Delights [Tuesday]

Today, Irene had decided, would be an excellent time to concentrate on her marketing efforts. The 'HELP WANTED' sign went back in the window, and she had brought her computer in with her today again to look over ideas for events that she could put on to drive traffic to the shop.

So far, she'd managed to avoid anything so pedestrian as Pinterest, but she knew it was a matter of time. Though Irene was mostly worried about the corners of the internet she'd have to visit to find some sort of craft for a party for a sex shop, honestly. There were just too many things that one could make penis-shaped, really.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Who is googling her cold little heart out.

Eleanor hadn't been in the store in a few months, and she was starting to have ... questions. She still didn't understand the vibrant plastic items, and still felt uncomfortable with most of the vulgarities on display here, but maybe Joker was right, that "dirty" didn't have to mean "cheap." That it could be soft, or intimate, or intoxicating.

It was easier to believe that when one wasn't staring at a bottle of lubricant that had a blonde woman posed provocatively on the label, her rear end presented to the prospective consumer just next to the words Anal Eaze.

Coming in here had probably been a mistake.

"Looking for anything in particular?" Irene called softly, after watching the girl discreetly for a moment. It was hard to miss her -- for one, she was quite tall, and for another, she looked young enough that she might indeed be Irene's first student visitor to the store.

Which would explain the staring. She really ought to think about hiding the more explicit items deeper in the store, but Irene's sense of organization also drove her to store like with like, which meant that Anal Eaze and its packaging belonged right there with the more gently suggestive raspberry-flavored lube she'd sold Derek last week.

Oh well. Kids had to learn sometime.

"I ... don't know," Eleanor responded. She had to seem woefully out of place, here, amidst the flavored lubricants with their eye-catching labels. "I don't think I'm looking for something, exactly. I just thought ... I might find something."

She glanced at the rows and shrugged, helplessly. "Or that I might make sense of it, I suppose."

There was a plastic phallus shaped like a dolphin. Was that for someone especially fond of dolphins? Or ... someone fond of dolphins?

"Which part?" Irene asked, setting aside her marketing notes and wandering over, hands clasped behind her back. "Which part are you trying to make sense of, that is?"

She smiled slightly when she reached the girl's side, trying to put the poor thing at ease. "Because depending, it might be a lost cause. Sex is inherently senseless, in a lot of ways."

Take it from a lesbian in love with a man, who got off on beating boys up and then going home to a nice lady.

It was actually a relief, to hear it out loud. That she wasn't crazy, that it was just ... chaotic chemicals sloshing around, making people go mad.

"I suppose I understand the motivation," she said. "The reptilian brain pushes the urge to procreate, so the species won't die out. I grasp intimacy, that touching can make one feel closer to other people, or even that it can be for a lark. The body wants what it wants, and it can shout down one's better instincts."

Her face may have betrayed some of her mild distaste. It didn't concern her in the least, what other people did, but it bothered her, immensely, that the same rules applied to her. That her lower impulses could overrule her rationality.

"But that doesn't explain ... plastic toys, or lollipops shaped like genitals. It's as if there's some joke that I'm simply not getting, no matter how many times I hear the punchline."

"The lollipops," Irene offered, after a moment of thought, "are because some people find sex inherently funny. Is it particularly mature? No, of course not. But I wouldn't doubt that some of your classmates might think it hysterical to make others uncomfortable with something like that -- the lollipops are indicative of a...casualness towards this sort of thing, a way to tease and joke about that which makes some people profoundly unsettled."

As for the toys, though -- "And the plastic toys are for those times when fingers, tongue and flesh might not suit all your needs." She leaned in, as though imparting a secret, and added, "Or for when your partner's unavailable, and you have an itch you have to scratch by yourself."

"So it's an attempt to be shocking," Eleanor mused. "Somewhat pedestrian, isn't it? Genitalia exist. Surely it would signal more maturity to be casually aloof than to fixate, wouldn't it?"

The comments about scratching an itch struck home, rather vividly. She wondered if the plastic toys might have helped when she was alone, in Joker's bed, and she was blushing, now.

"I don't like ... that one needs to scratch that particular itch," she admitted. "The mind ought to be stronger than the body. A choice is one thing, but a need is bothersome."

Irene noted the blush, smiling a little. She'd clearly struck some sort of nerve -- and of course she had, because girls didn't typically have the same cavalier attitude towards self-pleasure as their male counterparts. Typically, anyway.

"The mind and body work in harmony," Irene said, shaking her head, "and just as sometimes your brain sometimes overrides your body, there are occasions when our biological instincts rule our impulses."

She cocked her head at the girl, curious. Irene was reminded, of course, of someone else she'd known, who had insisted that the brain should be able to rule without the intrusion of sexual urges. He'd come around, eventually.

"Some people," she added, "never think of it as a choice. Lust is something to be ruled by, to allow yourself to succumb to. A choice is one thing, but a need is primal. And while we are of course highly-evolved, conscious and controlled beings who don't have to adhere to our baser instincts, some would argue that following the impulse to do so often produces more rewarding results."

"I don't like it," Eleanor said, shivering slightly. "The implications of it. Lust is primal, but it isn't -- I'm me. I'm my mind. My body is the shell I carry around with me. Why does intimacy have to involve taking one's clothes off? Why can't I connect with someone by opening my heart, or my soul? A woman lifts her skirt for a man when he offers her a hit from her drug of choice. Is this really all we're capable of, as a species? Eating, rutting, and falling asleep?"

Irene worried her lower lip for a moment, watching the girl. That was quite a comparison to make -- not too many teenagers would offer prostitution up as a reason not to have sex.

"There is a difference," she said slowly, "between just sex -- which is what I think you're objecting to, here -- and the bond created by the combination of physical and emotional intimacy. Sex doesn't have to be cheap. Some people enjoy casual sex, of course, but others don't ever take a shine to it, and that's perfectly okay. It's the most intimate thing you can do with your body, to share it with another person -- and unfortunately, people your age often mistake that for emotional intimacy, and it's...really, it's quite good that you already know the distinction."

She frowned a little, then reached over to offer her hand to the girl. "I'm Irene, by the way. Would you like to walk the store with me? We don't have to keep looking at her." She nodded to the young lady on the bottle, who had started this whole thing.

"Eleanor," she answered, taking the hand with a nod. "I'm sorry. You must think I'm impugning your business. I don't mean to, I swear. It's ..."

She was going to follow Irene so that she could be away from the platinum blonde and her derriere.

"Sometimes, I think I can feel it," she confessed, seeming sheepish about just saying this out loud. "The primal thrum of it, desire turning the switch and taking over ... and then I'll imagine someone's watching me, and find myself unable to continue. It's like I'm suddenly on stage with a spotlight shining in my face, and I feel the need to escape."

"Who would be watching you?" Irene asked, folding her hands neatly behind her back. "Is that a logical concern, or something born of insecurity and inexperience? There's no shame in it -- some people rather get off on that, but more often than not, sex is private."

She idly reached out to straighten a maribou boa, and added, "Sometimes if we're not entirely comfortable with who we are, it's hard to embrace letting someone else see us whole, too. Is there a someone, for you?"

There didn't have to be.

"I'm ... not much used to privacy," Eleanor admitted. This was by way of an understatement, but the details seemed to be beyond the point. "There ... is a someone. I trust him. I'm not used to trusting people. But I can't ... I don't want him to ... see me whole. Right now, he only sees the good side."

"And you're afraid the bad might come out during a moment of vulnerability?" Irene asked softly. "If you allow yourself to fully embrace lust's tide, he'd see your whole self? That's a tricky one. It's hard, allowing someone in like that, no matter how much you trust them. That, really, is why sex can seem tawdry. Keep it cheap, and deny any connection. Go for superficial pleasure, and forget about opening yourself up to another person. People find themselves all sorts of work-arounds to enjoy themselves without losing their armor, though."

And all of a sudden, this room was making sense, to Eleanor.

"These are distancing techniques," she said, slowly, as the pieces fell together. "The lollipops prove that you aren't afraid of intimacy. The toys make it into a game. Be shocking, be provocative, and keep your walls firmly in place."

It almost seemed sad, in that light.

"So you're saying I have a choice."

Open the floodgates, or keep her armor locked tight.

Edited 2014-08-03 02:16 (UTC)

"It's not so black and white," Irene said, though she was smiling. "But yes, exactly. He might know if you're holding back, but...there's ways to engage without putting your soul on a platter for him to reject."

Not that she'd ever been afraid of precisely the same sort of thing.

"I'd suggest taking some time to figure out what makes you feel sexy. If you feel as though you could seduce him, without having to bare your heart, he'll be putty in your hands, and you'll feel more fulfilled and able to let go, a bit. Just a hunch."

There it was, in plain English. What she was afraid of. Putting her soul on a platter, and having him push it aside.

Could using these tools as armor really help her, with that?

It couldn't hurt to find out.

"I don't know how to be sexy," she confessed. They were nearing the racks of lingerie, now, and she glanced at the racks of gauzy material. "My two dearest friends, they're ... delicate, like perfectly shaped porcelain dolls, and I'm -- ungainly. My body doesn't move the way I want it to."

She tugged out a particularly frilly pale pink nightgown (https://www.victoriassecret.com/sleepwear/babydolls-and-slips/halter-chiffon-babydoll-dream-angels?ProductID=199699&CatalogueType=OLS) and shook her head. "I'd feel bloody ridiculous in something like this."

"Of course you would. That's not for you," Irene pointed out, her smile widening a little. "Look at you. You're an Amazon, Eleanor. You've got legs that go on for bloody years. You'd look absurd in some frilly little number like that -- like a Viking pretending to be a princess."

She shook her head, pulling something black and studded (http://trashy.com/b536.24633-product.htm) off a rack. "Not everyone's looking for a porcelain doll, luv. Don't try to be something you're not."

An Amazon. A warrior queen. Some sort of wicked goddess, raining death and destruction on the world below her. to be loved, adored, feared ...

She reached out for the vinyl. It looked -- it looked like how she had felt, when Joker's hands had been pinned in his shirt. Triumphant.

"People ... wear things like this?" she asked, reverently.

"All the time," Irene said, deciding maybe she didn't need to share any firsthand experience, unless Eleanor actually asked. "I'd say leather and vinyl are almost more popular than lace and chiffon, really. Some people like to feel pretty and delicate and that's what turns them on, and others like the sort of...power, that comes with something like this. Everyone's different."

"I like power," Eleanor said, a little too quickly. "I like ... control. We played a game, once, with it, and I ... liked it. Maybe a little too much."

Maybe it was impossible to like such things too much. She was reaching out to touch the vinyl, wondering how expensive such an outfit might be.

Except ... if she bought it, Joker would want to see it, and ... hrm.

It wasn't that she objected to him seeing it. But it wasn't for him.

"A game?" Irene grinned at her, perhaps a touch proud to hear such a confession. The girl wasn't hopeless, not at all. "A game involving...restraint, perhaps? Mother May I, but with a twist?"

She knew that game very, very well.

Eleanor was now turning a very bright red. "Asking permission," she said. "And then his hands were caught in his shirt, and I didn't -- give him permission to free them. I felt like a queen."

He had called her My Lady. It had sent shivers all the way down her spine.

Irene lifted a brow, her smile staying put. "Then you," she said softly, "are a queen. Not a porcelain doll, and not a waif to be gently loved. You, Eleanor, are his queen. Remember that feeling."

It was her armor. It could be Eleanor's, too.

No helpful lesbian dominatrixes for you!

I'm taking advantage of being alone in the office today and printing everything I've ever needed printed.

(Anyone need something printed? I have a copier, too.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Dite's Decadent Delights [Tuesday]

Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Re: Talk to Irene [07/22]

Mod your shopping [07/22]

OOC [07/22]