Till Summer Do Us Part

by Meghan Quinn

Gird your loins and hoist your bras, ladies. We’re digging in.

But that’s not the worst of it. Nope, it’s the lip ring. On the right corner of his mouth is a small black ring that wraps around his lip. I zeroed in on it the moment he started tugging on it with his teeth. The movement made me feel embarrassingly weak in the knees. It’s a lip ring, yet here I am, panting and bouncing my leg up and down.

Yup, he’s getting my shoe. The heel right to the esophagus.

I follow her line of sight, straight to the steam shower, where a large dildo is stuck to the wall. “Dear God,” I whisper. “Whatever you do, don’t drop the soap, Scottie. For the love of God, don’t drop the soap.”

She hurries over to the dresser, picks up the longest dildo from the minibar, and wields it like a sword before walking up behind me and gripping my shirt, using me as a human shield.

“Who doesn’t have baggage?” I ask. “There isn’t one person on this earth who hasn’t opened a metaphorical suitcase and dumped in it. No life is perfect, no journey unmarred. Everyone’s carrying around something. So there’s absolutely no need to apologize.”