In thirty-four days, it will have been exactly two years to the day since I’ve had sex.

Having sex wasn’t exactly high on Kat Carmichael’s priority list while her successful bakery was taking off, especially since things hadn’t been working very well in that department. And the last time she and her boyfriend, Ryan, even attempted the act, they found it to be physically impossible—resulting in pain and disappointment for Kat instead of sunshine and orgasms.

With just over a month until their four-year anniversary, Kat calls for a break in her relationship with Ryan, encouraging him to see other people while she throws herself into physical therapy. Yet even with the well-intentioned (but wildly inappropriate) attempts at help from her best friends, Kat quickly discovers that a solo mission may not be the best approach.

Fortunately, physical therapist Ben Cleary, the shop’s best (looking) customer, volunteers to help out—strictly as a friend, of course. But as the line between love and friendship begins to blur, Kat stands to lose much more than a functioning set of lady bits if she can’t figure out what to hang on to...and what to let go.

The Awkward Path to

Getting Lucky

Summer Heacock

To my dearest mother.

May this heartfelt dedication persuade you to

ignore the fact that this book is about vaginas.

Also, if you read past this page,

I can no longer guarantee direct eye contact.

Love you, Mommy.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

The Awkward Path to Getting Lucky - Recipes

The Best of Cup My Cakes

Coconut Cuppies with Pineapple Curd and Candied Bacon

Butter’s Legendary Crème Brûlée Cuppies

Coopertown Ravens Red Velvet Cuppies

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cuppies

Strawberry Short-Cuppies

Acknowledgments

Copyright

1

I can’t frost this cupcake. My vagina is broken.

Get a grip, Kat, I tell myself. Nothing has changed in the last ten minutes. Nothing.

Nothing, except I looked at an invoice, saw today’s date and realized that in thirty-four days, it will have been exactly two years to the day since I’ve had sex. Two years. Two whole damn years. I don’t even see how that’s possible.

I mean, I’ve been busy! I was starting a business. That takes time. These cupcakes don’t decorate themselves.

And this one sure isn’t going to if I don’t get it together and focus. I’ve got about six minutes before the customer arrives to pick up his order, and I’ve got as many cuppies to ice in that time.

“You okay, Kat?” Butter asks, whooshing by me in a flurry of powdered sugar and edible glitter. Butter is all about the edible glitter. “Need some help?”

I shake my head. “Nope! I’ve got this!” Goddamn straight, I’ve got this. I’m a professional. I scrape off the shoddily piped chocolate buttercream and carefully squeeze out a perfect topper to the cupcake. I pick it up and set it in the to-go box before tackling the final five.

It’s not like I didn’t know it had been a while. I knew. But in my head it was maybe less than a year, because letting this go on any longer than that would be absolute madness.

The only reason I know it’s been almost two years is that the last time Ryan and I even attempted to have sex was on our second anniversary, and that was an unmitigated disaster.

Things had been stressful at the time. The shop had only been open for just over a year, still in that very manic sink-or-swim phase, and I’d been working nonstop. Then, on the night of our second anniversary, Ryan suggested that we move in together. Thanks to my eighty-hour work weeks, sex had become a sort of secondary thought for a few months leading up to the night, and even when we found the time or the ever-elusive mood, it just wasn’t working, physically.

That night, it became flat-out impossible.

Soon after, my gynecologist dropped the bomb: vaginismus. A disorder that sounds like a questionable Harry Potter spell, but the diagnosis meant that my jaunty bits had stopped functioning, muscularly speaking. Basically, it made sex really hurty, and it wasn’t something I was super in the mood for anyway, what with the promise of excruciating owies in place of sunshine and orgasms.

It made sense not to rush into cohabitation with Ryan while my junk was on the fritz, so we agreed to hold off until my nonfunctioning gal parts were back to behaving properly. Then, on our anniversary last year, he asked me again, but the issue remained, so we tabled the idea once more.

The plan was to try again this year.

This year on the anniversary that is coming up in thirty-four goddamn days.

How have I let this go on for so long? I don’t even remember the last time we talked about the issue. I suppose Ryan’s been waiting for me to take the lead. That’s sort of how our relationship works: I make plans, he rolls with it and fun times are had by all.

Except the whole sex thing, it would seem.

I guess it just sort of fell off my to-do list. There were more pressing issues to be dealt with. Like business plans and fondant sculpting seminars and scrambling with Butter and Shannon to get Cup My Cakes off the ground.

Two years, though.

I need to get laid. Like, yesterday.

I wonder if Ryan is freaking out about this as much as I am. Or, worse, what if he’s been freaking out about it for two years like I am right now, but I’ve had it pushed completely out of my mind? What kind of a hideous girlfriend am I?

I let him believe I’d handle everything, and now here I am—big fat not handling a damn thing.

I pop the last cupcake in the to-go box and seal it up just as the customer walks in. Ben Cleary, a regular who orders two dozen cupcakes every Wednesday for his coworkers. Always half chocolate, half whatever our special is, but prepared in allergen-friendly conditions because his assistant has a tree nut allergy. He’s a pretty awesome boss, I assume.

The front entrance opens, and in walk more customers. It’s our morning rush, when we get a combination of people coming in for coffee and muffins, and those who pretend they’re coming for muffins but are really coming for things covered in frosting.

I wonder if any of these people are dealing with broken bits... I remember my doc saying how common the disorder was, so the odds are good that there are some idle woo-woos in here on a fairly regular basis.

I feel a sudden and overwhelming urge to fix the situation right this very damn second. Now that it’s in my head, it’s all I can think about.

I wonder whether Ryan would be willing to give things a test run in the storage room over his lunch break...

Then I remember that today is his quarterly review with his team. The tie-wearing manager comes down from the fourth floor for the meeting and everything. I don’t think he could slip away from that, even with the promise of attempted midday delight.

Attempted. Even if I got him over here, or anywhere, for that matter, I don’t know if I could physically do it.

Two years.

Twoyearstwoyearstwoyearstwoyearstwoyears.

An urgent sense of panic is engulfing my sanity. There are several men in the mix of people standing in line to order. I start scanning them like I’m a lascivious cyborg. Are any of these specimens potentially sexually compatible?

Butter is handing change over to an older gentleman who comes in twice a week for coffee and a scone. He always wears a bow tie and a bowler hat with a Mr. Rogers cardigan, even if it’s ninety degrees out.

Sure, he’s probably in his late eighties, but I suppose it’s possible he still has some spring in his step. The liver spots on his hands do sort of bring out his eyes.

Stacking up the boxes of cuppies, I give Ben Cleary a good once-over as Butter and Shannon move to greet him at the counter. Hmm, he’s a good-looking fella. Very pale skin, blue eyes, dark hair, not too skinny, not overly beefy, kind of quiet. A jawline I could slice my hand open on.

My eyes drift from Ben to survey the front room of our shop. Sky blue walls with trim painted daffodil yellow and a springy green. Designed so that when you walk through the front door, seeing the decor combined with the tasty smells wafting from our kitchen is like stepping into a full-sensory hug.

The innocent decor contrasted with my hyper-focused surge of concentrated frogginess is unsettling at best.

“Uh, Kat?” Shannon says.

“Yes?” I say, my voice sounding detached as my unwholesome gaze shifts to a man who is at least in his sixties. He’s wearing a wrinkled lavender button-down shirt tucked into denim shorts and socks with his sandals, but I’m debating his sexual prowess nevertheless.

“Let go of the cupcakes, Kat,” she says, and I’m now aware of her attempting to tug the to-go boxes out of my arms. I release my grip and step back, and Shannon gives me a concerned look. “You okay there, Pumpkin?”

I blink at her. Butter is standing at the counter, pouring Ben a cup of coffee, and our new cake decorator, Liz, has come out from the back room to help with customers.

And then there’s me. Standing here sexually objectifying senior citizens.

Oh god. What am I doing? I don’t want to have sex with geriatrics or random customers. Ryan. I want to have sex with Ryan.

He and I are going to have one hell of a chat tonight. And, gods willing, some absurdly long-overdue naked time.

I look up at the kind old man I was just meat-marketing and feel mildly sick to my stomach.

“Uh, Kat?” Shannon nudges me.

“Yep,” I lie. “I’m great. I’m awesome. Super awesome.”

Shannon narrows her gaze at me, but swings the boxes around to Ben. “Can you finish up with him?” she asks me, her happy customer service expression already back on for the other customers as she moves down the counter.

“Sure.” I shake off the criminally unfortunate images that were just forming in my mind and make my way to the register, where Butter is now showing Ben the Cuppie of the Day.

“White chocolate with a raspberry jam center,” she says excitedly. No one loves cupcakes as much as Butter. She’s been here with us since day one, and she still gets kid-on-Christmas-morning excited to see these little culinary treats go out the door.

“They look great,” he says with a genuine smile. “The hidden truffles last week were a big hit.”

I grin. Butter looks like she’s going to squee out loud. The hidden truffle cupcakes were all her master plan.

She reaches behind her for a small jar of edible glitter with a brush sitting inside and, in her flustered state, starts dusting the tops of the white chocolate cuppies with reckless abandon.

“That’s her way of saying thank you,” I offer. “Not just anyone gets extra glitter, you know.”

Butter has been known to shower glitter on anyone she thinks needs a boost in their day. Everyone should have a Butter in their lives.

He raises an eyebrow. “I will cherish this honor.” He tips his coffee cup to us in a mock salute, takes his boxes and bids us both a good day.

Butter is on cloud nine. I’ve never seen someone better suited for her job. I love what I do—we all do—but even when we are all exhausted and bitching about the long hours and ungrateful customers who grouse over too much or too little frosting on their kids’ birthday cakes (yes, that happens), Butter is always happy to be here.

If I didn’t love her so dearly, I’d probably have to hate her.

Mr. Cleary heads out, as do Bowler Hat and Socks with Sandals, and we deal with the rush. I manage to avoid any more wildly inappropriate thoughts about our elderly customers and get my head back in the game.

Okay, so, yes. This is a problem. One that I need to deal with. But right now, I need to focus on getting through this Wednesday and an imminent staff meeting.

After the morning burst, we meet for a little huddle in the back room by the workstations. This routine is partly to gather our wits, and partly so we can stand and drink coffee and catch our breath without any potential customers catching us with our aprons down.

Shannon, Butter and I started Cup My Cakes together three years ago, and we all have our place in the arc of power. Shannon Brimley, tall and tough with a mop of curly blond hair tucked under a tied cake-themed handkerchief most days, is our master organizer. Mika “Butter” Kawai is our culinary genius and a perpetual ball of happiness, with beautiful black hair as thick as her finest buttercream, always pulled back into some sort of braid. Liz Watson, our newest employee, is the teeniest adult I’ve ever known, all pale skin and even paler hair, and the lord paramount of elegant cake artistry.

And then there’s me. The middle child. The resident cupcake decorator and sexless wonder.

“We sold out of the cranberry scones again,” Shannon says, taking a sinful sip of coffee. Shannon is the only one of our group who has taken the leap into the big leagues of the adult world. She’s been married for a decade and has two tiny little humans she actually created and manages to keep alive and everything.

Of the four of us, I imagine she sleeps the least.

“Should we make more tomorrow?” she asks.

“Maybe a couple?” I shrug. “I’d say no more than six. Then reevaluate.”

Butter nods. “I agree.” She picks up a chunk of blue fondant off the station and starts rolling it out. “And we definitely need to have another pan of brownies ready to go first thing in the morning from now on. This is the second week straight we’ve run out well before the end of rush.”

“Noted. Liz, how’s the Guffman cake coming?” Shannon says, scanning down her little scratch pad to-do list.

Liz makes a face and looks over at the cooling racks, where six layers of cake sit with fondant setting. “I’m about to assemble and then start the second-stage decorations. I kind of hate this cake.”

The Guffmans are avid followers of the Green Bay Packers, so for their wedding this coming Saturday, they requested a six-tier cake with a giant Cheesehead thing on it. It’s all bright green and yellow and orange colors, and there isn’t a single candy pearl to be found anywhere. It is, in fact, Liz’s worst nightmare in cake form.

“I can help with it!” Butter volunteers happily. Liz gives a small but appreciative smile.

“Don’t you have that fortieth anniversary cake to do next?” I ask Liz. “All covered in intricate stencils and edible rhinestones? Which I honestly had no idea were even a thing until you started working here.”

Liz perks right up. “Yes! I forgot about that order.”

I raise my mug. “See? There’s a light at the end of your Cheesehead tunnel.”

Shannon turns to me. “Where are you on the Sadie Hawkins order?”

We were contracted by a local middle school to provide tasty treats for their upcoming dance. Gesturing to the cooling racks in the back, I say, “The first hundred are cooling, I’ll start the rest now, and if I go all day, I should have all five hundred decorated long before it’s time to head home.”

“All right,” Shannon says. “Butter, you’re going to help Liz, and you’ll be working on the triplets’ smash cakes, yes?” Butter nods. “Great. And I’ll be restocking the front display case and working on the rest of the orders for tomorrow. I’ll also be doing a trial run of the personal pies so we can test those out before we launch them next week. Later today I’ll go and make our deliveries. Also, the Capuzo order is going out this afternoon, so everyone gird things.”

I roll my eyes. Mr. Capuzo is a semi-regular customer who comes in every few months and is either incredibly pleased with our services or pitches a raging holy fit about the weirdest things. Once he bought all the oatmeal raisin cookies in our display case, then came stomping back in five minutes later because he’d thought the raisins were chocolate chips. Never mind the fact that the cookies were clearly labeled—he still considered the raisins to be a “betrayal.”

I so would not have sex with Mr. Capuzo.

“Not it!” Butter calls out. “I’m still not over his meltdown from when the strawberry short-cuppies didn’t have as much filling as he thought they should. If I have to wait on him, I’ll cry.”

Shannon grins. “I’ll take him.”

“The hell you will.” I snort. “Last time you dealt with a jerky customer, you flung a cupcake at him.”

“It slipped,” she says, casually flipping through the papers in her hand.

“It slipped a good five feet and landed with surprising precision on his chest,” I correct her. “We had to pay for his dry cleaning. And Mr. Capuzo is too old to have you throw baked goods at his face—or his face through a window—so no, I will take the Capuzo when he comes in.”

Liz looks moderately terrified. Shannon smiles. “Kat is our Mouth,” she explains. “Butter cries, I throw things, Kat keeps us from getting sued.” Liz considers this and shrugs with apparent satisfaction. Shannon looks back at her list. “Okay. Is everybody good? Meeting over?”

“Actually, really quick,” Butter says, “I was thinking about doing the coconut cuppie with pineapple curd and candied bacon as the headliner tomorrow.” She can turn damn near anything edible into a gourmet cuppie. “When you’re out on deliveries, could you pick up some supplies?”

“God, yes,” Shannon agrees with an enthusiastic nod. “I think that’s my favorite of your recipes. Could you make an extra half dozen so I can take them home to Joe and the kids? They love those so much.”

Butter beams. “Sure!” she says. I foresee that extra batch getting the royal edible glitter treatment.

Looking around the shop, Shannon asks, “Is that everything?”

Butter and Liz nod. Shannon takes in a deep breath, smiles and sets her pad down. She takes another glorious sip of coffee.

“Oh, hey,” I add casually. “There is one thing.”

It’s very slight, but I swear I see her wince. “What did I forget? Is there another order?” She starts pulling invoices off the stack on her workstation and flipping through them.

I shake my head. “No, it’s nothing like that.”

Shannon sets the papers down and lets out a gust of air. “Okay, good. What’s up?” she asks, lifting her coffee mug to her lips again.

“My vagina is broken and Ryan and I haven’t had sex in almost two years and it’s really distracting. Help.” A strangled, rupturing sound escapes from Shannon, and suddenly it’s raining coffee in the kitchen.

2

“Wait...” Butter asks, her eyes aghast. “What do you mean your vagina’s broken? How do you break a vagina?”

Liz, looking horrified, leans toward me and whispers, “Did you fall on it or something?”

I blink at her. “No. No, I didn’t fall on it.” Shaking my head, I answer, “It’s a disorder. Well, that’s what my doctor said two years ago, anyway.”

Shannon stops mopping the spit coffee off her station and points her towel at me. “Is it vulvodynia? Vaginismus? Vaginitis?”

My jaw flops to my chest. “Vaginismus. How could you possibly know that?”

She barely restrains an eye-roll as she resumes wiping down the coffee-splattered counter. “Oh my god, when you said your vagina was broken, I thought it was something like cancer, you dork.” She moves down the station and pushes her towel across the coffee-splattered floor. “I went through vaginismus after Heidi was born.”

Butter wheels around. “Wait! Your vagina is broken, too?”

“It’s been broken for seven years?” A very unfortunate whimper escapes me.

She looks up at us with that semi-irritating mom expression she uses when we push her patience a smidgen too far. “Guys. No. I was having trouble for a few months after I had Heidi, and the doctor said it was vaginismus. So I went to a physical therapist for maybe three months, did the rest of the therapy at home and I haven’t really had any issues since.”

I’m gaping at her. “How did I not know about this?”

Shannon grins. “Sorry. Next time one of my reproductive parts shorts out, I’ll be sure to bring it up at a staff meeting.”

I stick my tongue out at her.

“Wait,” Butter interrupts. “Physical therapists...for your...vagina?”

“Yes.”

“But...” She blinks at me, and then at Shannon. “For your vagina.”

Shannon lets out a deep sigh. “Yes.”

“They have those?” Liz squeaks. Shannon nods. “Around here?” She nods again.

Butter explodes. “Are you freaking kidding me? We don’t have an Olive Garden, but we have vagina therapists? What even is real life?”

Shannon ignores Butter’s outrage and focuses on me. “How have you had this for two years? You’re with Ryan!”

“We’ve been in a...dry spell,” I say evasively.

“Honey, you guys have gone two years without sex?” Shannon asks, awed. Liz’s eyes get wider.

“Technically,” I say with a huff, “it’ll be two years in thirty-four days. The last time we tried was on our second anniversary.”

Clutching her glitter brush like a security raft, Butter looks traumatized. “Tried? As in, you couldn’t even do it?”

As I’m trying to think of a way to explain this to her without causing her irreparable mental harm, Shannon moves in front of Butter. “It’s like this,” she says. Shannon holds up her hand and points a finger at Butter’s face. “If I try to poke you in the eye, what happens?” As she moves her hand closer, Butter instinctively slaps it away.

“If you poke me in the eye, I’ll punch you in the boob.”

I stifle a snort as Shannon continues. “Go with me here. If I move my finger toward your eye, what happens?” She waves her finger past Butter’s eye, and thankfully, no one is boob-punched.

“I blink.”

“Okay,” Shannon says, slowly. “Now, even though you know it’s coming, and you know I’m not going to actually poke you in the eye, what happens?” Moving her finger at a glacial pace, Butter’s eye still slams shut of its own accord. My knees clench a little.

“That’s vaginismus.” Shannon says, shrugging.

“Oh my god, you poor things!” Butter says, clutching her heart.

“Hey, I’m fine now,” Shannon says, throwing her hands up. “Kat’s the one with the broken hoo-ha.”

“You know,” I say, taking a long pull of my coffee and wishing it was spiked with bourbon, “you’re kind of stealing my vagina thunder here.”

Shannon goes over to the pot and refills her own mug. “I just can’t believe you’ve gone two years like this. Didn’t you do the therapy?”

Liz, sort of looking like she wants to be set on fire, quietly asks, “What does that mean, exactly?”

I shrug. “My doc said it was all about retraining the muscles or something.”

“So why didn’t you?” Shannon insists. “I mean, two years, hon.”

“I did try!” I say, feeling defensive. “Well, I tried. It wasn’t one of the finer moments of our relationship. She gave me this little packet of things to try with Ryan, and we did for a while, but it was weird, and he seemed really uncomfortable. So I decided I’d figure it out on my own when I had time to focus on it.”

Everyone is staring at me. Finally Butter says, “And how’d that work out for you?”

My brows furrow. “I just sort of lost track of time, I guess.” If I weren’t so annoyed by the look they are all giving me, I’d have to laugh at the perfect unison in which they all started giving it.

Shannon’s face looks like she’s trying to solve a complicated math problem in her head. “Wait, your second anniversary? Is that why you told him you weren’t ready to live together?”

“Could you for once not remember every tiny detail of everything?”

She gasps. “Is that it? I figured you were just being stubborn about commitment!”

“Oh, stop it. It’s not that. But when we tried the therapy stuff, it was so goddamn awkward, and I just wanted to be super sure that when we do try again, it actually works. All the failed attempts didn’t do wonders for my self-esteem.”

Shannon frowns. “I can see that. You need to be comfortable when you go for it.”

“See? It’s not like I didn’t want to get it sorted. I just didn’t have the time to invest. Now it’s been nearly two years, and Ryan is supposed to ask me to move in together, and I want to say yes, but I can’t until I fix this, and I’m five months away from thirty, and I don’t want to end this decade with a broken vagina, you guys. I just really don’t.”

“That’s not good decade juju, no,” Butter adds as I suck in a lung-piercing breath.

“And you can’t just say yes and actually take the damn time to work on it while you’re living together?” Shannon asks.

“No!” I yelp, surprising even myself with my vehement tone. “When you move in with someone, it’s supposed to be all happy and exciting and horizontally mamboing on every surface of your new place. Not awkwardly sleeping together, wondering when one person is going to get their nethers back on track. I don’t want that hanging over us if we do this.”

Butter is lightly pulling the bristles of her glitter brush back and forth across the top of her station. “So, you and Ryan aren’t doin’ it, but you’re—I mean, you guys do the other stuff, right?”

For the first time in this conversation of horrors, I blush. “Not exactly,” I mutter.

“Kat.” Shannon looks astounded.

“It’s too weird!” I shriek. “Okay? It’s bizarre. We’d kind of hit that comfortable relationship place where there wasn’t like, a ton of making out and stuff, so it felt too random to do that stuff knowing how it wouldn’t end.” I realize Ryan and I never discussed it, but somewhere along the line, we definitely stopped doing anything in the sex category in a mutual way. “That’s why this is so important! I don’t know how it all got so messed up, but I have to fix it. Now. This is not how relationships are supposed to go, and this is on me.”

While Shannon and Butter consider my stance, Liz swallows hard. “Is it possible it just...fixed itself?”

I stare at her, dumbfounded that I haven’t considered this possibility sooner. “Um. I don’t think so? I’m not sure. Can that happen?” A tiny flicker of hope appears.

Butter looks around desperately. “Look, I didn’t even know you could break a vagina!”

We all turn to Shannon, who looks perplexed. “Come on,” I say. “You’re the resident vagina expert, apparently. Can it?”

Shannon closes her eyes and makes a face that I am pretty sure I’ve seen her give her kids a few times. She calmly pulls her phone out of her apron pocket and starts typing. I know she’s hitting Google hard. We all squish over into her station to read over her shoulder.

“Okay,” Butter says, reading from medical websites as Shannon scrolls. “It’s like you said—there are therapists, and therapies you can do yourself. This is something that is almost one hundred percent treatable. So, wow. Like you said, the muscles just sort of...clenched up there, didn’t they?” I close my eyes and take a deep, calming breath as that flicker of hope poofs away, and Butter looks slightly hurt at my expression. “Well, sorry. I’m trying to catch up. And the disorder keeps you from letting anything, ahem, in, so that’s what the therapy does. You just keep training the muscles until they are used to, erm, the in things. It doesn’t say anything about it just going away, but I guess the only way to know would be to...check.”

“So,” Shannon says plainly, “grab Ryan tonight and go for it.”

I blink at her. “As much as I am in desperate need of getting some—and I definitely considered the grab-and-go option—I refuse to give it the old college try with him just to have it not work. Again. I can’t do that to either of us.” I wave my hand at the phone. “I’ll just have to go a different route.”

“How are you going to do that without your boyfriend?” Liz whispers.

I fight the urge to pat her head while Shannon stares at her. Butter is gaping.

Clearing my throat, I delicately say, “There are boyfriend substitutes, you see.”

It takes her a second, but she gets there. Her face turns bright red, and she takes a large drink of her coffee.

“You sweet summer child,” Butter says, shaking her head. “So, Kat, you do that, and then you’ll know!”

“Unfortunately,” I reply, “I’m lacking the appropriate stock for these experiments. That’s not exactly my style.”

I’m getting the side-eye from Shannon. “Really? You’ve been boinkless for that long and you don’t have any...gear?”

I scoff, “What? I’m more of a right-click-your-mouse than power-up-your-hard-drive kind of gal. So?”

Liz makes a noise, and I’m certain she’s going to faint.

“Sweetie,” Shannon says, putting her hand on Liz’s shoulder, “if you want to leave this conversation, I swear none of us will hold it against you in the slightest.”

“No!” Liz insists. “I’m okay! I just...my friends don’t normally talk about this stuff. But I’m fine, really! I want to help.”

Shannon pats her on the back. “Teamwork. I admire that.” She turns back to her phone. “When I was doing my own therapy at home, I had a stash of things I could use that weren’t that far off from what one might use to ‘power their hard drive,’ as you say, so maybe you can kill two birds with one dildo.”

Butter snorts into her coffee and starts choking spectacularly.

“You did not just say that.” I shake my head.

“Pumpkin, I’ve got two kids. More people have seen my vagina with a human being coming out of it than I care to admit. I haven’t peed alone in nine years. I have no shame. This stuff happens. When I had my gallbladder out last year, you were right there bringing us food and watching the kids and manning the shop and being the best damn friend in the world to me and mine. We don’t pick our challenges. You’re like family and I love you—you have a problem and I’m here to help. If that help involves dildos, bring it on. I’ve fucking got this.”

This is certainly our liveliest employee meeting to date.

3

After the shop closed for the night, Butter and I hit up the Naughty Market over on Fourth Street. Then I raced home and, with the help of a newly acquired phallic device, made the discovery that my lady bits were indeed still on the fritz.

This did not start my evening with Ryan under an umbrella of joy.

We have standing date nights on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. If we find some extra free time, we try to meet up more, but working eighty-ish hours a week at the shop doesn’t grant me a tremendous amount of time off. Having the together moments scheduled in advance helps make sure I put the piping bag down and remember to have a life. Well, on those three days of the week, anyway.

With a tiny gray storm cloud floating over my head, I carefully stow away all evidence of my experiment in my nightstand before I set to prepping for Ryan’s arrival.

I’m feeling uncomfortably electrified about seeing him tonight. For a moment, it reminds me of the jitters from the way back parts of our relationship. When we had a date and I was excited to get ready before he picked me up.

This isn’t that. There’s an anxiety brewing inside me, knowing it’s time to shout until we are both fully aware that the emperor has no clothes and a broken thang.

The more the determination churns in my stomach, the clearer it becomes to me how this has carried on for two years. There’s a comfort in our consistency. Our routine may not be dripping with platitudes and romance, but it’s ours, and it’s soothing.

I toss my flour-covered shirt and jeans into my hamper and change into a nearly identical outfit, sans flour. Taking a look at myself in the mirror, a wave of panic flashes through me.

I quickly yank off my T-shirt and toss it back into a drawer. I have to dig pretty far into the Narnia region of my closet, but I finally find something that’s more blouse than T-shirt. At the very least, the cut of the neckline implies I’m aware I have breasts, which is a big step up, really.

Walking up to the mirror in my bathroom, I pull my hair out of my uniform ponytail and grab a brush. Even my hair is efficient. I keep my chocolate-hued locks just long enough that I can whisk them into a ponytail at any height on my head, but not long enough that I have to put in the effort of actually styling them every day.

Plus, when I let my damp hair dry tied back, it finishes all smooth and shiny, if slightly dented. Otherwise I’d have to use blow-dryers and serums, and there’d be frizz to tackle, and I’d just rather spend that twenty minutes sleeping.

As I brush out my hair, a tiny part of my brain wonders when it was that I stopped putting forth any effort in the looks department. I’m expecting some sort of vagina miracle, but I can’t even be bothered to make an effort to look nice for our nights together?

Maybe that’s what’s missing. My vagina misses the joy of getting all dolled up for a night out.

A slightly louder part says it was probably right around the time sex started feeling like a below-the-belt root canal sans anesthetic.

When did Ryan give up?

Did he, though? Is he still putting forth all the best boyfriend maneuvers, but I’m too strung out from work to even notice?

We’ve fallen into a comfortable groove the last few years. Our date nights are simple, but nice. He brings over takeout, we sit together and talk about our jobs and life and the world that happens around us that I rarely get to take the time to notice. We curl up together on the couch with a couple glasses of wine and watch Netflix or a movie or just keep chatting.

It’s nice. These nights are the least stressful parts of my week. I love my time with Ryan, and I can’t imagine my life without these moments of Zen with him.

But the more I analyze us, the more I realize there’s nothing here that screams “relationship.” I could be doing these exact things with Shannon or Butter and have that same feeling of soothing calm.

As much as I’m racking my brain here, I can’t find the intimacy in what we’ve been doing. We have a familiar kiss hello when he arrives, we sit beside each other at the table and on the couch, but we don’t cuddle or make out anymore. I’m not even sure we touch each other much.

A wave of sadness washes through my entire body. I miss touching. I miss the feeling of warmth from being physically close to someone. I miss the feeling of skin against mine. Cuddling up next to him used to be one of my favorite things.

I remember when things started tanking in the nookie department, Ryan took a noticeable step back from almost all apparent physical intimacy. When I asked him why, he said he didn’t want me to feel like he was pressuring me for sex I couldn’t even have.

At the time, I thought that was really sweet, and I appreciated his consideration.

Now I’m just feeling guilty. Like I made him afraid to try to hold my hand. And if I’m being completely honest, I’m also a little resentful, because I really miss that part of our relationship.

I hear my front door open and the familiar sounds of Ryan making his way through my living room to set take-out bags on the counter in the kitchen.

I pull the brush through my hair one more time, set it back down by the sink and head out to greet him.

I peek my head out of my bedroom and watch as he starts setting out containers and cutlery on the counter. He seems right at home.

If I’d agreed to us living together, I wonder if we would have lived here? We never made it that far into the discussion. He’d been hinting at cohabitation for a month or two before our second anniversary, and I liked the idea a lot, but with the onset of trouble in Vagville, I’d always sort of dodged the conversation.

I take a moment and stare at my boyfriend of nearly four years. He’s lovely, really. His green eyes are calm and content as he pops the lid off what looks like chicken makhani.

He used to have the sexiest floppy black curls that I loved. It’s part of what made me notice him in the first place. Around the time of our first anniversary, Ryan buzzed them off after growing tired of a coworker constantly saying he looked like Sherlock Holmes.

I would have taken this as a high compliment, but Ryan maintains that Benedict Cumberbatch looks like a bipedal lizard, and the comparison made him self-conscious.

Three years later, it’s still cropped short.

The anxious wave hits me again. If I’m longing for the warmth and touching and closeness, I can’t even imagine how he feels. Maybe he’s been suffering that wave for two years, waiting for me to get it together so he can have it again.

He looks up from the naan he’s arranging on a plate and finds me lingering in the doorway.

“Hey, babes,” he says with a smile.

“Well, hello there, sir,” I say, leaving my place of reflection and heading out to the kitchen. I lean over the bar counter for our welcome kiss.

It’s just like every kiss we’ve had for I don’t even know how long, but with everything at the forefront of my mind now, I can’t help but overanalyze it. My first thought is it’s quick. Perfunctory, even.

It’s a takeout-on-Wednesday-nights-at-my-apartment-for-three-years kiss.

Lady bits issues aside, it’s alarmingly clear to me now that Ryan and I are way past a simple rut. We’ve hit a relationship trench, and I’ve spent the last two years with a shovel in hand, digging us deeper.

And I refuse to hit that two-year drought mark. I just can’t let that happen. Which means Ryan and I are going to have to talk about this. It’s time. I’ve put this conversation off for nearly two years for reasons I can’t sort out at the moment, but I can’t ignore it any longer.

“So,” he says, grabbing glasses from my cabinet. “How’s life at the office?”

“I think we should see other people,” I blurt out, to the astronomical surprise of us both.

4

“Excuse me?” he says, still holding the two glasses.

Putting my hands on the counter for support, I blink awkwardly for a moment, trying to connect the words that just left my mouth to a fleck of sanity in my mind. “I think we should see other people,” I repeat, slower this time. “We should take a break.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” he asks. He doesn’t seem shocked or hurt so much as he seems to want a casual clarification. His lackluster, almost accepting expression makes me suddenly confident I’m doing the right thing, despite the utter lack of forethought I put into this decision.

“No,” I say calmly. “I’m saying I think we should take a break, and during that break, you should be free to see other people.”

He sets the glasses down, and his face falls into an expression of confusion.

He’s still dressed in his work garb. He works for an IT solutions company downtown, where the dress code is polo shirts and jeans at its fanciest. Belts are worn by those who want to put in the extra effort to shine.

I look at Ryan in his half-untucked gray polo and beltless jeans and take a breath.

“Look, I’m just going to address the sexless elephant in the room here.” I sigh, throwing up my hands. His eyes go wide. “We haven’t had naked time together in almost two years, dude. Did you realize that? In thirty-four days it will have been a full two years.”

Ryan’s face goes blank, and he tilts his head ever so slightly to the side as he digests the information. “Huh.”

“Exactly,” I say, crossing my arms. “And I don’t know about you, but that seems kind of not great to me.”

His confusion returns. “So, because we don’t have sex anymore, you want to take a break? A break for what?”

I shrug, feeling electrically charged and sort of sick to my stomach. “I need to get this sorted out, and I honestly can’t focus on what I need to do while feeling like the biggest ass in the world for not being able to fulfill my girlfriendly duties.”

He rolls his eyes. “If it’s been two years, it obviously doesn’t matter to me if it takes some time for you to get better. Although it’s nice to hear you’re thinking about it. I figured you just weren’t into sex anymore.”

I gape at him. “What?”

“I don’t know,” he says defensively. “You never bring it up, so I just assumed.”

“Well, you never bring it up, either!”

He throws his arms up and says loudly, “Why would I bring it up? It’s your problem! What am I supposed to do? Be the jerk who asks for sex you can’t have?”

My jaw flops down and I stand up a little taller. “Excuse you,” I snap. “My problem? If I recall, I tried to get you to work with me on the stuff my doctor told me to do, and you didn’t want to because it was too weird.”

Looking a little embarrassed, he regroups. “Look, I’m sorry, but sex isn’t supposed to be that complicated. And you told me she said the therapy was stuff you were supposed to do. You said you’d take care of it and let me know when things were okay again.”

Now I feel my face burning. “Well, things aren’t okay.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath that is irritatingly shaky. “What I’m saying is, I’ve gotten so caught up in life and work that I haven’t been able to make it a priority, and I want to take the time to focus on everything now.”

His eyes shift to the side. His trademark confused look. “That’s...good?”

Calmly I continue, “But I don’t want to feel like I’m keeping you on some sexless leash any longer. That isn’t fair to either of us. So let’s just call this a break. You go off and do your thing for a few weeks, and I’ll be here doing mine, and then we’ll regroup and see if we can’t get back to where we’re supposed to be.”

“For how long?”

I square my shoulders. “Until our anniversary.”

He stares at me, and I can’t tell if he’s just contemplating what I’m saying or preparing to argue again. I walk around the counter and close the distance between us. Reaching out, I put my hands on his forearms.

“I love you,” I assure him while silently missing his floppy curls all the same. “And I know I told you I didn’t want to live together until I got this vaginismus nonsense under control, and I meant that. But you said you’d keep asking on our anniversaries, and I really, really want to be able to say yes this time.”

“For the record,” he clarifies, “I love you, too. And I’ve always been okay with us living together, with or without the sex.”

“I know,” I say with a smile, “but I’m not. I need to fix this—for myself, and for us. I’m ready to move on to greater things, Ryan. This holding pattern isn’t good for anyone anymore.”

He looks frustrated, but doesn’t pull his arms away. A little calculator in the back of my head announces that this is the longest we have touched in months.

“And you want us to see other people?” he asks.

My eyebrows involuntarily twitch. “Yep. I mean, that’s more for you than me, as I’ll be involved in independent activities, but yeah. Go out. Get laid. You’ve waited long enough. And then on our anniversary, we’ll meet back up and get to where we should have been this whole time.”

Now he does move away from me. I awkwardly let my hands drop to my sides. “You’re actually telling me to go have sex with other women. Are you drunk?”

It’s my turn to roll my eyes. “No, I’m not. And yes, I am serious. I mean, I’d appreciate it if you were careful with protection and didn’t, like, actively seek to bang your way up and down the Midwest, but yeah, if you’re in a place where an opportunity arises naturally and you want to sleep with someone, I say go for it.”

He looks floored. “And you have no problem with that? With the idea of me having sex with someone else?”

I consider this, wanting to be as honest as possible. “It’s not my favorite, and I’m not going to go into great thought imagining you in whatever situations may arise, but yeah, I’m okay with it. I can’t stand the guilt hanging over me anymore, Ryan. You have needs that I’m not meeting, and it just makes sense to let you live your life while I’m getting my shit together over here.”

Ryan gently shakes his head, but seems very calm. He places his hands on the counter by the plates, and his fingers start tapping. Whenever he’s deep in thought, they tap out little non-rhythmic signals. He works with computers all day, so I like to imagine he’s subconsciously working through things by tapping out binary code or something.

“This is sick.”

I give him an encouraging grin. “I like to think it’s practical. And it’s only thirty-four days.”

Ryan stares at me for a long moment, fingers still rapping out a beatless sound, and I can’t read his thoughts in the slightest. He looks down at the food he was setting out before I came in and dropped a giant bomb of what-the-fuck.

“I got that veggie korma you like,” he says with a sigh, pointing to a tray of yellow sauce. “And the garlic naan.”

I’m familiar with this form of acceptance. Ryan is very go-with-the-flow, which is generally a good yin to my yang. Part of me feels a little bad for steamrollering him, but the rest of me knows I’ll be able to make it up to him with sweet, sweet lovin’ in thirty-four days.

“It smells awesome,” I say with a smile.

He seems to easily fall back into our comfortable Wednesday date-night routine as he hands me a plate. “So,” he says, spooning rice out onto a plate of his own, “how was work?”

I grab a fork and quietly let out a deep breath. This is going to work. I’ve totally got this.

Hell, I bet I won’t even need all thirty-four days.

5

“You what?” Shannon shrieks at me.

Our morning meeting ended, and I decided to break the news of my master plan to get my vagina back on track.

“I told him to see other people,” I repeat, running my finger around the rim of my coffee mug. “We’re on a break.”

“How the hell is that supposed to help you?” she shouts at me. “You’re trying to have sex again, so your plan is to get rid of the guy you could be having that sex with?”

“Will you calm down?” I ask, feeling a bit annoyed at her reaction. “I am going to work on the therapy myself. And I have an appointment with my gynecologist next week. I just want to get things sorted on my end before I jump back into bed with him. I want to make damn sure it all works before we go for it. I’m not putting either of us through another failed roll in the hay, okay?”

Liz looks like I just told her the Earth is actually flat.

Butter looks concerned as she asks, “And how did Ryan take all of this?”

I shrug. “He was okay with it, actually,” I answer. “He’s a free agent until our anniversary, and by then, I will bloody well have things in working order, and we’ll pick back up again.”

I swear I can see smoke rolling out of Shannon’s ears. “Part of getting through my therapy had a lot to do with Joe helping me through things, Kat. There was a lot of trial and error!”

“That’s you guys,” I snap. “You’ve been together forever and you have kids and it’s all kinds of different, okay?”

“Everybody chill out,” Butter says, holding up her hands. “There’s no reason to get loud with each other.”

“But she’s being ridiculous!” Shannon argues.

“Lady, calm down,” Butter demands, “or I’ll hit you with my glitter brush.”

Shannon can’t help it. The side of her mouth twitches with a hint of a smile. “Well,” she says at a far more human volume, “are you going to see other people, too?”

“No. Why would I? That’s the whole point. It’s a ‘Me, Myself and I’ kind of therapy.”

“Yeah, but the actual having sex thing isn’t,” she says. “And doing the therapy is very different from sleeping with someone. It’s not like you’re going to be able to just hop back in that saddle after a few weeks of work and everything goes smoothly, you know? It can take a few tries.”

I gasp. “You never told me that!”

Shannon looks around wildly. “When would I have had a chance to tell you? How was I supposed to know you’d run home and break up with Ryan?”

“Glitter brush, guys!” Butter warns.

Shannon takes the kind of breath that I have seen her take many times before when dealing with her children. “I’m just saying that in this case, practice really does make perfect.”

“Since he’s going to be seeing other people,” Butter offers, “why don’t you see other people, too? Then you could...uh, practice.”

Looking like she’s giving this thought way more consideration than it deserves, Shannon says, “That could work, actually.”

I look at them like they’ve each grown three heads. “How am I supposed to date someone new with all this going on? ‘So, this is great—however, it’s possible I can’t have sex with you, but let’s go ahead and give that third date a go anyway’?”

Shannon frowns. “Yeah, you’d want to try with someone you were really comfortable with, for sure.” With a frown directed squarely at me, she adds, “Which is what I assumed Ryan would be.”

I glare at her. “Will you stop? This is hard enough without added guilt from you. He seemed okay with the situation.”

I think he was, anyway. And I think I am.

I am, aren’t I?

We are all standing here, sipping coffee and contemplating what Shannon has said when the back doorbell dings. Morning deliveries. Shannon sighs and sets down her mug, giving it a longing look before she heads out to sign for everything.

Liz, her white-blond hair pulled back tightly into a chignon today, starts fiddling with a ball of lavender-colored fondant. Butter takes her brush out of her apron pocket and pokes at the inside of a nearly empty glitter pot on her station. Both of them are clearly avoiding my gaze, which is more than a little awkward.

Then Shannon comes running back in with a mischievous smile on her face and a stack of boxes in her arms. She’s practically skipping as she sets them down on her station.

“Whatcha doing?” I ask.

“What’s up with you?” Butter asks. “You didn’t even finish your coffee.”

“They came,” Shannon says gleefully, bouncing on her toes.

Butter gasps. Liz blushes. I glare.

“What came?”

They fly at the boxes, and suddenly it’s like Christmas morning, but with powdered sugar dust flying everywhere in lieu of snow. There’s a rustling of paper, squealing, a gasp from Liz, and a few seconds later, Shannon and Butter emerge, hands clutching a variety of sex toys.

“Oh. My. God.”

“Look what we got!”

I shake my head and rub my temples. “I see what you got. Why did you get them?”

“Well, seeing as you waited two years to take matters into your own hands,” Shannon says with an exaggerated wink, “we decided we’d step up and give you some motivation. I remember all the things my doc suggested I use, so we ordered you everything! There are dilators, different kinds of lubes, faux-penises in varying sizes, natural and synthetic materials—all the things a gal could possibly need to stroll her vagina down the road to recovery!”

She and Butter are standing there in our tiny kitchen, a dildo and bottle of lube in each hand, held proudly over their heads in triumph, looks of absolute glee on their faces. Liz’s face slowly drops its look of horror as she edges closer to the boxes and peeks inside.

“You guys are the best friends a vagina could have.” I smile. “This is also the weirdest thing I’ve ever been a part of. You had sex toys overnighted to our bakery. Why’d you have them delivered here?”

“Because I couldn’t carry all of this on my walk to work,” Butter says as she starts loading my arms up with fleshy implements.

Shannon hands me a bottle of all-natural lubricant. “And if they came to my house, my kids would have thought they were early birthday presents. Back when I was in this scene, they were both too little to notice, but now they wouldn’t think twice before tearing the boxes open. And that would be hard to explain to Child Protective Services.”

“Fair enough.”

“And!” Shannon continues like a demented game show host. “I forgot to tell you, what with the Ryan news, but last night I printed off a whole bunch of instructions on the different techniques for you.” She reaches under the prep table and pulls out what can only be described as a home-printed encyclopedia of vaginal information.

I flip through some of the pages. There are diagrams, full-color schematics of anatomy and pages upon pages of different therapy tools, which could also be confused with a sex-toy police lineup. The devices are all assorted by length, girth and so on—and presented in a clinical manner that’s both hilarious and a bit unsettling.

“The next time any of you has an even slightly embarrassing condition, you just wait,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s so on.”

“Now we just need to get you a date!” Butter adds.

I drop a dildo. “Excuse me?”

“A date! Come on, we just talked about this! So when your noonie is at full capacity, you’ve got someone ready to test it out with!”

Shannon jabs a dilator through the air. “I’m coming around on that, actually. Things were definitely easier for me since I had Joe to practice with, so what if we set you up with someone? Because I know this guy Richard from City Planning, and I have always thought he’d be perfect for you.”

Butter chokes on a laugh, and her hands, still full of flesh-colored rubber penises, fly to her mouth. I shake my head. “Shannon.”

“What?”

“Richard? You want to set me up with a guy named Dick? Come on.”

Her face goes still as she processes, and then she doubles over laughing, her ponytail of golden curls flying by my face as she cackles toward the floor. “I swear I didn’t think of that,” she gasps without looking up. “But, oh my god, that’s amazing.”

Letting her own guffaw loose, Butter adds, “I knew a Willy in college. I bet he’s still single. Want me to give him a call?”

Liz giggles over the boxes. “One of our groomsmen is named Peter.”

Jerking up to a standing position, Shannon has tears streaming down her face. “What about Rod who does deliveries on Thursdays? Or, okay, there’s a guy who works at the butcher shop by my house, and cross my heart, his name is Lance Johnson.”

She flops over onto the prep table, completely taken by hysterics. Butter is making strangled sounds as she tries to pull in air through her laughter, and even Liz has lost it.

“Hardy-har, yes, it’s hilarious, they all have names like penises,” I say, shaking my head. My coworkers are all in various states of collapse, clutching sex toys, laughing like ten-year-old boys, and while sure, Lance Johnson is actually pretty hilarious, I’m not feeling very chuckly at the moment.

It really has been forever since I’ve even been out with a guy who wasn’t Ryan. Even worse, it’s been forever since I’ve been out with Ryan himself. I can’t remember the last time he and I went out on what would be considered a date. We hit that too-comfortable stage even before my giblets went on strike, and half the time we spend together is ordering in and eating from take-out containers on the couch because neither of us wants to bother with dishes later.

We’ve hit the boring part of being an old married couple without ever doing the marriage bit.

As determined as I am to make this break a short and singular one, there’s no love lost for the weird, distant aching that comes from sitting next to someone you love because you’ve been together forever and wondering if you’re maybe just there out of habit.

You order your chow mei fun and routinely ask who wants the last dumpling because you’ve always done it. And in the early days of being together, you really cared that the other person got that dumpling, because you had all the feelings for them and wanted to see them happy. But after a certain point, you’re secretly thinking, “Fuck you, that’s my dumpling.”

It’s never even occurred to me until now that we’ve reached the “Fuck you, dumpling” phase of our relationship. And I can’t help but feel like this is mostly my doing. I don’t know what caused my vaginismus, but I do know I haven’t made it any sort of priority to fix the situation over the last two years.

It’s breaking my heart. Ryan deserves better than someone who hoards her dumplings.

It’s only now, standing here with my friends and our hands full of sex toys, that I realize I miss that early stuff in a relationship. Well, not just the early stuff, I suppose. The good stuff.

I want to want to give away my dumplings.

Shit. I feel lonely. And a little pathetic.

Wiping the tears off her cheeks, Shannon tries to regain some adult composure. “Oh, we’re just messing with you, Kat,” she says. “I promise. We will only set you up with people with non-phallic names, okay?”

I look down at the dildo in my hand and feel unexpectedly sad. “No, you guys are fine,” I assure her. “I don’t know if the dating thing is a good idea, but I’ve only got thirty-three days left to make this happen.”

“So let us set you up!” Butter insists.

I sigh. “I think you’re putting the cart before the horse there, Butter.”

“No way! Besides, who cares what comes first, the chicken or the dick!”

From the front of the store comes the muffled sound of a crash, and we all freeze. Like the guilty people we probably are, we scurry around the prep table, through the door, back behind the customer counter. Ben Cleary is standing by the register, biting his lip, fighting a laugh and feverishly attempting to wipe up the coffee we served him no less than fifteen minutes ago.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, without looking up, his voice cracking from the laugh he’s trying to contain. “I came back because I forgot I needed to change my order for next week. I dropped this. I’m sorry.” He finally glances up at us, and all hope for composure is lost. He bursts out laughing—full-on, leaning-on-the-counter, unable-to-breathe laughter.

It’s only then that I realize every single one of us has some manner of sex toy in our hands. Some of us multiple. Oh my damn.

Liz screams. She actually screams. She turns tail and flees back into the kitchen, scurrying so fast I can hear her crash into the prep table. Shannon, Butter and I calmly try to fling the contraband behind our heads and back into the kitchen, but someone flings a bit too hard, and there is a spectacular metallic crash as a stack of mixing bowls comes tumbling down. Liz screams again.

Ben Cleary is trying his very hardest to get a grip, but it’s just not happening. We all straighten up and try to look as professional as we can, but there’s really not a lot we can do to save this. Ben has coffee dripping from his fingers, and there’s a puddle spilling over onto our side of the counter. Shannon and Butter are just staring at him, blinking. And just when I think he’s got a handle on himself, he splutters into laughter again. I fear he may rupture something.

Motherhood may have robbed Shannon of shame, but I don’t think anything could have prepared her for this.

I clap my hands together loudly. Butter and Shannon jump. Ben puts the back of his wrist over his mouth to stifle the sound of his chuckling. There are actual tears in his eyes. “Okay. Shannon, could you go grab a couple of towels and help Mr. Cleary get this spill cleaned up? And, Butter, could you go check on Liz and see if there’s anything you can assist her with in the kitchen?”

Butter giggles, and Shannon slaps her across the arm. “Yes, of course,” Shannon says, aiming for a professional tone, and they scuttle away.

“And Mr. Cleary,” I continue.

“Please,” he says, his voice still cracking. He clears his throat. “Call me Ben.”

I smile at him. He’s being a real sport about the situation, all things considered. The wrist cuff of his shirt has coffee staining the edge. I look closer and see the spatter all over the light blue fabric of the button-up and the gray of his tie. Poor bastard. Came in for a cup of joe, walked in on a cacophony of dick jokes. Didn’t stand a chance.

“You said there was an issue with your order next week? If you’ll step down here to avoid the mess, I’ll be happy to help you with that.”

He shakes the coffee off his hand onto the counter and makes his way down to the other end where I’m now standing, holding out a towel for him. “I really am sorry about that,” he says, gesturing toward the spill. “It slipped.”

I take the towel back from him and give him a little half smile. “I bet it did.”

Shannon reappears at the other end of the counter and silently starts mopping up the mess, refusing to look at either one of us, her eyes dancing with a pent-up burst of manic hilarity.

Ben shakes his head and bites down another laugh. “I wasn’t listening, I swear,” he insists. “I came back in and was about to ring the bell. But when I heard Butter say the thing about the chicken, I laughed, I spilled, and that was it. And then you all came running out with...” He tries to swallow down the guffaw, bless him. His eyes tear up again, and it all comes out as an unfortunate snort.

“I kind of hope you broke a rib just now,” I say, grinning.

He clutches the counter. “Oh my god, I’d deserve it. I’m sorry, but that was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“We like to keep things fresh here,” I say casually. “We are a full-service shop.” His eyes pop open, and he makes a small choking sound. Shannon giggles and dives back into the kitchen, and I close my eyes in dismay over what I just uttered. “Oh, shut up. You know what I mean.”

“Someone getting married?” he asks, wiping the tears out of his eyes.

“What?”

“The, um, stuff. Bachelorette party?”

I involuntarily squint at him. “Yes. That makes perfect sense. Absolutely. Liz is getting married in October, so yes. That is exactly what those things were for.”

“Oh, it’s Liz? That’s nice. Good for her.”

“Ace. Now, you said you needed to change next week’s order?” I say, plastering on my best customer service smile. “Well, we’re on a roll here, fella, so let’s get down to it.”

6

“I can’t believe you told him those things were for my shower,” Liz pouts, stacking a tier of chocolate fudge onto a new platform. “That is so embarrassing.”

“Technically, I said they were for your bachelorette party, and he thinks we got them for you. So he probably thinks we are the dirty birds, not you,” I say with a wink.

The store phone rings and Shannon disappears. Butter adds, “I think this will be good. You’ll go home tonight, get your gear going, and soon you’ll have a happy vagina. Then we can stop making Liz flinch every time we say vagina.”

Liz scowls. I give her a sympathetic look. “You really do flinch.”

“Did you grow up in a house where you called it something else? Like a cutesy word?” Butter asks. “Bajingo? Minge? Foo-foo? Vagoo?”

My eyes narrow at her. “Vagoo? Really? That’s...unfortunate.”

“I dated a guy last year who called them vagoos. Two dates. I couldn’t get past that.”

“Nor should you have.” I shudder. “It’s unforgivable.”

Slapping her piping bag onto the table, Liz snaps, “Okay, fine. No, we didn’t say vagina. We said special, okay?”

“Aww, you called it your special?” Butter asks.

I consider this. “That’s actually kind of genius. I’d grow up thinking my business was like, the key to the universe or something. I wouldn’t let just any man near my special, ya know? I like that. My special.”

“I can’t tell if you’re making fun of me or...” Liz trails off, biting her lip.

I hold my hands up. “I’m totally not! I’m all for proper term usage, but if you’re going to give it an alternate moniker, don’t use something lame like hoo-ha, call it the fucking special. I really like that. Hell, I might start calling mine that.”

Butter is looking down at herself. “My special. Okay, you’re right. That’s got a ring to it.”

Liz looks both horrified and oddly accomplished. She picks up her piping bag and sets back in on her cake just as Shannon comes running back in excitedly.

“Guys, oh my god, guess what?”

“We all just voted and we are all calling our vaginas our specials from now on,” Butter informs her.

Shannon stops midflail and makes an indescribable expression at Butter before remembering that she has news to share. She shakes off her confusion and turns to me and Liz. “Okay, but seriously, guess what?”

“What?” we ask.

“The Coopertown Ravens, the college basketball team? They’re looking for an official bakery for their stadium concessions, and they’ve asked us to audition for them!”

“What?” I trill. “That’s amazing!”

“It’s a huge contract! They’d sell our cupcakes at every event exclusively! We’ve got a month to present the designs, and they’ll do a tasting and make their selection. Guys, this would be massive for us. The advertising alone would be worth its weight in gold, but the actual contract, plus sales? Hello, big fat bonuses and me taking my kiddos to motherfreaking Walt Disney World!”

“Oh my god, a honeymoon!” Liz squeaks.

“I could fly out to see my Noni!” Butter gasps.

I bounce in place. “I have absolutely no grand aspirations I can think of right now outside of getting laid, but yay!”

“Kat, the art is all you, lady!” Shannon says, her eyes gleaming. “We can work together on the designs, and Butter, I’m counting on you for the recipes. We can do this, guys.”

“Who else is in the running?” I ask.

Shannon frowns. “I don’t know. But I’d assume The Cakery is, because of course they’d be.” The Cakery is a pretentious shop in the city that makes all their frosting out of olive oil and sea salt, and absolutely nothing has gluten. “And probably the usual bridal cake shops? Maybe Odessa.”

Butter perks up with a conspiratorial look. “We could scout out the other shops. Go and try their products and make darn sure we’ll kick their asses. We could use fake names and wear trench coats! I call Olga for my name.”

Squinting at her, I say, “Of all the names you could choose for your secret identity, you pick Olga?”

“What’s wrong with Olga?”

Shannon shakes her head. “Let’s call that plan B.” Looking a bit deflated, Butter fidgets with her glitter brush. “I don’t want to know too much and psych ourselves out. It doesn’t matter who we’re up against or what they make. What matters is that we’re going to give Coopertown the best goddamn cupcakes they’ve ever tasted or seen, right?”

“Right!” the rest of us cheer.

“Let’s start researching the team—everything we can find out to come up with colors, flavor ideas, themes, anything. We’ve got a month, so let’s make it count.”

I salute her. “You’ve got it, Captain.” I head over to the teeny desk we have crammed in between the fridge and the wall and open up our shop laptop. A picture of a breast-shaped cake appears. “Uh... Shannon? Why is there an edible tit on the laptop?”

“Oh, yeah. We got an order for a boob-cake for a party. Liz?”

Liz slumps. “I knew today was going too well.”

“What’s the boob-cake for?” Butter asks.

“It’s a breastfeeding support group thing. Their one-year anniversary of meetings or something? Looks doable.”

Liz comes up behind me and looks over my shoulder, wincing. “Yeah, I think I can do that with fondant pretty easily.”

“Boob-cake.” Butter shrugs. “Who knew?”

I sit back in my chair and click open a new browser tab. “I fucking love this job.”

I take my phone out and, for a moment, think of texting Ryan to tell him about the hubbub in the shop. Is that something we can do on a break? I never thought to ask how we’d proceed with the nonsexual trappings of coupledom while separated.

Suddenly I realize that he hasn’t texted me since we hit the bricks. Is he as conflicted as I am? I don’t know what to do with the sad feeling that comes with having to question whether it’s proper protocol to message one of the most important people in my life.

I quietly tuck my phone back in my pocket as Shannon, standing at her station scribbling in her notebook, looks up at me. “Okay, this is just a loose estimate here,” she begins. “But I’m pretty sure that with the money from this contract, we would be able to hire on another employee.”

I whip around. “Seriously? An actual, full-time employee?”

Looking back at her scribbles, she says, “I’ve been trying to make it work for weeks. I think we’re already at the point where we could take on someone part-time right now, but someone full-time would be tight, and I hate to risk it. But with the contract, I think we could absolutely do a full-timer.”

“Whoa,” Butter says, staring off into the void. “That’s the dream, baby.”

I lean back in the chair. “What would we even do with ourselves if we could split the schedule with a new person? Life not working eighty hours a week seems like crazy talk.”

“I think I’d hire a closer,” Shannon says, gazing moonily at me. “And then I could see my kids for longer than an hour every night before they have to go to bed. I could make it to more than one football game each season. I could cook actual dinners like I used to. Or at least be there to order the takeout.”

Considering the free-time possibilities, I offer, “I wouldn’t have to have only scheduled date nights with Ryan. Plus, I could stop using the whole married-to-my-job notion and maybe not let my special go ignored for two years.”

“That there is an important goal,” Butter says seriously. “I’d date, too. That’s all I’d do with my free time. I’d ask out all the pretty boys and girls. Then maybe my parents would shut up about the horror of me being single.”

I frown. “They know you’re only twenty-six, right?”

“I don’t think logic is crazy important when it comes to familial shame,” she says with a flick of her hand.

“Ooh.” I turn back to Shannon. “What about a delivery van? We’ve been looking into that for over a year, man.”

She starts poking her notebook with the pen. “We can do a van now, actually. I just hate making the commitment for that kind of expense when we’re getting by just fine with what we have.”

Butter snorts. “No offense, but your minivan isn’t exactly the pinnacle of rides.”

“Hey,” Shannon scoffs. “It’s got a DVD player in the back. Don’t hate on my minivan.”

I raise an eyebrow. “I’ll never get over you driving a beige minivan. If we get a delivery van, you don’t get to pick the color.”

Rolling her eyes and straightening her apron, Shannon ignores me. “Okay, the presentation is on the twenty-second, so we need to get to work. It’s focus time, people.”

“Isn’t your lady bits deadline on the twenty-seventh?” Butter asks me.

I frown. “Yeah. But that’s okay. I can multitask my major life events.”

Shannon looks amusingly unconvinced as she tucks her notebook into her apron and goes to wash her hands. Butter winks at me and returns to her cakes.

I turn back to the laptop and stare at fondant and buttercream chesticles of varying quality. There’s a surprising number of boob-cake images online. But then, I’m always surprised when we get odd cake requests and discover we aren’t the first to tackle them.

The four-foot edible mermaid last year was particularly shocking. To think there could be more than one of those in the world.

Just under a month until the presentation. A month and change until my deadline. I can absolutely handle this.

7

Everyone is setting up their stations before the Monday morning rush in silence, as per the usual. No one has had time to let any coffee take effect by this point, so the most we usually muster is a grunt or two in recognition of the other humans in the room.

We’ve got only a few minutes until the hordes come crashing in, so I am trying to chug as much caffeine as I can while I tie on my apron and get my station in somewhat working order.

“So,” Butter says, breaking our unwritten code of silence. “How’d the stuff work over the weekend?”

Liz pops her head up, and Shannon stops in her tracks, holding a tray of brownies she’s taking to the display case out front.

I yawn. “Pretty good. I’ve got some preliminary sketches done. I think I’ll come up with some solid ideas for the presentation.”

Everyone is looking at me like I’m maybe the stupidest person they’ve ever encountered. “The stuff,” Shannon parrots. “Like, vagina stuff, lady.”

I slowly blink at her. “Oh. I didn’t get to that. I was working on the Coopertown ideas until really late every night and was too tired. I’ll break it all out tonight.”

Shannon looks personally offended. “Kat! You have to do it every day! Otherwise it won’t work. While I appreciate your dedication to the contract, you can’t put therapy off! That’s how you got into this whole two-year mess in the first place.”

My nature is to be indignant and sassy back to her, but even in my sleep-deprived state, I know she’s right. I take another swallow of coffee and say, “Fine. You’re right. I promise I’ll work on it tonight, okay?”

The front door bell jingles, letting us know our first customer of the day has arrived, and we know a whole gaggle isn’t far behind. Shannon races off with her brownies, and I grab a tray of orange muffins with warm cinnamon glaze and follow her.

The rush hits, and Shannon and I are working hard to take care of all the customers while Liz and Butter make sure our display shelves are fully stocked.

An hour or so in, I see a face in line I recognize—a coworker of Ryan’s whose name I’m pretty sure is Alice. I smile as she reaches the counter and say, “Hey! Good morning!”

“Hi, Kat!” she says, all sparkling teeth and perkiness, despite it being so early. “How are you?”

“I’m great,” I say, keeping my customer service face on, despite the caffeine in my system being severely underwhelming to combat her level of cheer. “What can I get for you, Alice?”

She points at the blueberry muffins and says, “One of those, and a large drip coffee to go.”

I grab a to-go cup and start pouring her coffee. I find most customers like to get that to their lips as fast as possible. Hell, I’ve known people to finish their cups before they even get to the cash register. I admire that kind of dedication.

“How’re things?” I ask Alice as I pop a lid on her drink.

“So good!” she says, taking the coffee from me. I reach down to bag up the muffin when she adds, “I was sorry to hear about you and Ryan!”

My head snaps up, muffin clutched in my hand. “What? What about me and Ryan?”

I notice that she holds her coffee with a raised pinky. Who does that?

“That you guys split up,” she says, eyeing the other confectionary offerings behind the glass.

“Oh,” I say, fighting to keep that professional smile intact. “Right, that is true.”

He’s telling people we split up? It’s been less than five days. And did we really split up? Is that what I should be telling people while we’re on this break?

“I know this sounds weird,” Alice continues, “but I wanted to come and make sure you were okay with everything before our date. I didn’t want to step on any toes, or get involved in something that’s still messy, you know?”

My hand clenches on the muffin, and it crumbles into chunks on the floor around my feet. “You’re...you’re going on a date with Ryan?”

Shannon’s head whips up from a few feet away. She can sense danger the way police dogs can sniff out weed in an old station wagon.

Alice looks at her mangled muffin. “Yeah,” she says cautiously. “When he said you’d broken up last week, I asked him out to dinner. I hope that’s okay?”

Shannon is hovering in her spot, waiting to see if she needs to tackle me to the floor before handing her customer a scone.

I blink wildly at Alice for a few seemingly endless seconds. “Oh, sure!” I trill. “I mean, totally! How great for you both!” I reach down into the case and pull up another muffin, carefully placing it in a bag. Handing it across the counter to her, I say, “Really, that sounds awesome. I hope you both have a great time!”

Shannon comes over, puts her hand on my shoulder, and in her most friendly-sounding tone, says, “Hey, Pumpkin, can you go trade places with Butter and finish up those cookies for the next round of rush? And have her bring up another tray of the coconut cuppies?”

I smile benevolently at her. “Absolutely.” I turn to Alice and keep the look alive. “It was so nice to see you again,” I say, moving out of Shannon’s way. “Have a great time on your date!”

I scurry into the back room and relay the cupcake message to Butter, who rushes out with a tray in hand.

Flopping down on the stool at my station, I stare off into the void for a moment. Five days. It’s been less than five days. How in the damn hell did he find someone to go out with in less than five days?

“Are you okay?” Liz asks, cutting another batch of scone dough. “You look a little pale.”

I look up and feel a blank expression plastered on my face. In the background, the sounds of a busy morning rush register in the one part of my brain that’s not sitting here repeating the Five days? mantra.

“I’m fine!” I say, willing it to be true. I grab my mug and quickly dump the now-cold coffee in the sink, reaching over and filling it again with the pot we keep back by our stations. “I just needed another little jolt to keep me conscious.”

She takes this as a suitable response and gets back to her scones, now loading them on a sheet tray for baking.

Shannon sticks her head back through the door. “All right?” she asks me as I chug coffee that’s only half a degree below molten lava in temperature.

Liz looks up at me again, suspicious now.

“Super!” I say, raising my mug. “Just super!”

I take another sip and head back out into the front room. The line isn’t any shorter.

“You can take some time,” Shannon whispers beside me. “Seriously, I’ve got it under control up here.”

I shake my head. “I’m good, really.”

And I have to mean that. This was my idea. I told him to go date other people. I’m not sure what I initially thought that would entail, but I can’t fault him for doing the exact thing I insisted he do.

Admittedly I didn’t assume he’d make progress this soon. He’s a pretty quiet dude, and I don’t think I pictured him out there getting his mack on, bringing home a caravan of eligible concubines.

Then I remember that Alice said she asked him out. Was Alice standing around lusting after my boyfriend all these years?

While that thought should probably make me want to punch Alice in the face, all I can focus on is—Why haven’t I been lusting after him for years?

It took Alice five days to ask him out. It’s taken me nearly two years even to attempt to have sex with him again.

Wait. She said when he told her about us splitting up last week. That means she probably asked him on Thursday or Friday.

Less than forty-eight hours and he found a date.

My cheeks feel numb.

“Good morning,” a voice says in front of me.

I look up. It’s Ben Cleary, holding a to-go cup and wearing a friendly smile.

The last time I saw Ben, he was splattered with coffee, red in the face from laughing to tears, and being a really good sport about an absurdly awkward situation.

His teeth are very white. But not, like, too white. I hate when they’re too white.

I’m not sure why it hits me, really. Maybe it’s just the reaction to hearing about Ryan moving on in the world. Maybe it’s because I’ve known Ben for so many months as a customer. Maybe it’s because I accidentally sexually objectified his admittedly impressive jawline the other day. Maybe it’s because he should have looked a little pitiful all splattered with coffee, but he managed to appear endearing.

Whatever the reason, I find myself struck with the urge to offer Ben Cleary my last dumpling.

I mentally jump away from the thought as if it’s physically burned me. I can’t ask Ben out. I shouldn’t even be thinking about asking someone out.

Just because Ryan is going out with someone, maybe several someones, doesn’t mean I should. The whole point of this is to fight my way back into the relationship I let myself be too busy to tend.

But if that’s the point, maybe Shannon and Butter are right. Maybe I really do need to know for damn diggity sure that my equipment works properly before I go back to Ryan.

How’s it going to look on our anniversary—after I’ve assured him I’ll fix all the ills—if it’s another false start?

I don’t think I could handle that. I honestly think it would break my brain or my soul or what little shred of dignity I’ve got left.

I can’t fail. I refuse to.

“You know,” I say, sounding a thousand times more confident than I feel, “I still feel really bad about the ambush yesterday.” I tilt my head back toward the kitchen of chicken entendre and rubber penises. “I was wondering if I could take you out for a drink to make it up to you?”

The words are out of my mouth before I’ve had time to properly consider them, and I have to pinch my wrist underneath the counter to keep from exploding with hysterical, nervous laughter.

His eyebrows shoot up. “Really?” He looks down at his shirt and pulls on his tie. “Um, that’s not necessary.”

Ouch. Wow. I’m on a fucking roll. I force a smile anyway. “At the very least, this week’s order is on the house.”

“No, wait! I mean, I’d love to go for a drink with you. I just don’t want you to feel like you have to out of responsibility.”

“What?”

He frowns at me and shifts uncomfortably. “I’m sorry. What?”

I press my forefinger into the squishy spot between my eyebrows and wiggle it around for a second. “Dropping the subtleties, I was trying to casually ask you out for a drink using the pretense of yesterday’s embarrassing coffee and sex toy kerfuffle. But really I’m just asking you out. In case that isn’t translating.”

He stares at me and pulls on his tie again. “I’m...accepting?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Neat. Ernesto’s, tonight, say sevenish?”

“Okay.”

“Awesome.”

I’m only slightly aware of the throng of people standing around the two of us. Butter is statue-still at the register, holding someone’s twenty over the cash tray. Shannon is standing beside me, grinning as she stuffs some cookies into a bag.

The older man she’s prepping that bag for points at Ben and me and announces with a grin, “I’ll take one of what he’s getting.”

Ben turns a bit pink and scoots down toward the register. I arch an eyebrow and smile at the old man. “Sorry, sir. We just sold out.”

8

I get to Ernesto’s a little early, and I’m sitting at the bar, stomach flopping, ignoring how bizarre this entire situation of mine is by sketching tiny Coopertown Ravens on a bar napkin, when Ben comes walking in. I set my pen down on the bar top and smile. “Glad you could make it. I wasn’t sure the translation stuck.”

He grins and rolls his eyes as he takes the seat next to me. “In my defense, I find your shop a very difficult place to keep any wits at hand.”

“Fair enough,” I concede. The bartender comes by and Ben casually orders the same beer I’m drinking. My curiosity is piqued, so I channel my skin-twitching anxieties into Q and A. “Did you order that because it’s what I’m drinking, or is this what you usually drink?”

“Excuse me?”

“The beer. Is that your usual drink?”

His eyes narrow slightly at me, considering. “No, it’s not. And yes, I ordered it because it’s what you had, and it was easier. I didn’t really think about it.”

“If you’d gotten here first, what would you have ordered?”

His lip twitches. “Why do you ask?”

“The drink of choice can say a lot about a person,” I suggest, morphing my nerves into theories. “It’s not an exact science, but I think there’s something to it. Like, if you ordered a whiskey, but made a sour face with each drink, I’d say you were trying to impress me with your manliness. If you ordered a martini, I’d wonder more about what kind of business you do. If you ordered a fancy martini with lots of specifics, I’d say you might be a little pretentious. If you had a beer like this on your own, I’d say you were laid-back. But see, you ordered it because I had it, so now I don’t know much at all.”

Somewhere in my mind, a voice reminds me that Ryan always orders whatever’s on tap.

Ben laughs and rubs his hand over his forehead. “You get all of that from a drink order?”

I take a sip of my beer and try not to imagine how Ryan’s date with Alice will go as the bartender sets Ben’s glass down in front of him. Ben stares at the drink and chuckles to himself. He twists a bit in his chair, and I point to his chest, exclaiming, “Hey! You changed your shirt!”

He looks down, then back up at me. “Yes?”

“Did you change your shirt because we were having drinks, Ben?”

He laughs loudly and rubs his hands roughly over both eyes this time. Reaching over, he grabs his glass and takes a very long drink.

“You are...” He sets his beer back down and stares at me, grinning as he searches for the appropriate word. “Very intimidating. Do you know that? I honestly can’t tell if this is your personality and I should be really intrigued, or I’m being punished for the other morning.”

I sit straight up, mortified. “What? No! I’m not punishing you! Why would you think that?”

He leans forward and puts one hand on the bar. “You’re just really forward. Not that it’s a bad thing,” he clarifies. “I just kind of feel like I’m making a poor showing, you know?”

Running a hand through my hair, I huff. “I’m sorry. I think I’m so used to being Little Miss Sassypants with everyone at the shop, I don’t know when to shut it off. But I swear this isn’t a deliberate thing.” A horrible calculation of the sheer volume of time I’ve been with Ryan pops into my head. “And...um. Wow. This is probably an overshare, but I just realized it’s been an age since I’ve been on a date, so it’s possible the etiquette has escaped me. Really, I’m sorry if I offended you.”

He smiles kindly and leans back in his chair. “You didn’t. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t reading you wrong. And how long is an age?”

I do the math in my head and try not to visibly shudder. I don’t have the stones to say I haven’t been on an actual date in probably three years. Nor do I have the stones to say that technically I’m only on a break from the person I went on those last dates with.

I’m an asshole.

I finally say, “Longer than a while, less than an eon?”

He studies me for a moment. “I get that. This is actually my first night out in a good minute.”

“Life, am I right?”

“I will cheers to that with my questionable drink choice,” he says with a wink.

“Aww.” I laugh. “I really am a jerk. I’m sorry. I just think it’s interesting! Really, what would you have ordered if you’d gotten here first?”

He thinks about it for a moment. “Let’s see. I have to be in the mood for a martini, but when I am, I order it dirty and with gin. Garner whatever information from that you can. Also, I’m a dreadful Irishman, and my father is forever disappointed, but I don’t generally care for whiskey, so my manliness will have to remain in question. So if I’d ordered first? Probably a Guinness or a gin and tonic. Those are my regulars.”

I giggle into my glass. “Those are good regulars. Guinness will be my next order if we make it to drink two, just FYI.”

“If?”

“Well, it’s all very up in the air, isn’t it? I’ve managed to intimidate you, we have translation issues and I’m kind of a dick. I mean, the cards are stacked against us, Mr. Cleary.”

“See, now we have to make it. It’s a challenge. We must conquer this mountain.”

I take in a dramatic, shuddering breath. Reaching out, I take his wrist and squeeze it defiantly. “You’re right. We can do this. Success will be ours.” Thankfully he laughs, so I let him go and take a drink. “We need to keep our momentum going.”

“It’s crucial,” he says with a wink and takes another sip of his beer. “Tell me something fantastic you did today.”

My hands feel suddenly hot as I remember Alice and her info-bomb. She’s very pretty. Red hair, freckles, a perkiness I don’t possess. I wonder if Ryan has told her about our situation. Maybe they’re going out fully knowing the endgame is sex.

I gulp my beer and push the images out of my head.

I think about telling Ben that the most fantastic thing I did today was ask him out because my business hasn’t had company in two straight years, and at the moment, the prospect of a trial run is starting to seem very appealing, but that seems slightly inappropriate. Slightly.

I sigh. “I feel like I’m letting down our cause to say all I really did today was plot how to make ravens out of fondant. Although, on Friday, I got to design a boob-cake. That was a highlight.”

Ben splutters on his beer. “Boob-cake?”

“It’s a cake shaped like a breast.”

“Your job is obviously better than mine.”

I consider this as I take a long sip. “Probably fact.”

Reaching up and loosening his tie a bit, he asks, “So, how did you get into the business of boob-cakes to begin with? If I’d been given that pitch on career day in high school, I don’t think I could have resisted the lure.”

“The boob-cake siren song is a mighty one,” I agree. “And it just sort of happened. Shannon and I went to State together. She was a business major, and I was dicking around in communications with an art minor solely because my mother refused to have a child planning to base her life off an art degree.

“Shannon graduated and got married, had her son, and I met Butter during my senior year on campus. She was part of this bake sale that was trying to raise money for the culinary arts majors to take a trip to France, and she sold me the best goddamn cupcake I’d ever had in my life. To this day, nothing has ever tasted as good as that crème brûlée cupcake.

“We became pals, and after we’d all graduated, we tried our hands at various crap jobs. A few years ago, Shannon had a moment where she realized that she hated watching her degree gathering dust but couldn’t see herself schlepping in an office somewhere. I was working as the lowest level assistant possible at a horrible radio station that aired nothing but aggressive talk radio, and I had exactly no desire to move up the ranks. One night we were ranting about adulthood, and Butter brought cupcakes. Lightning struck, and that was it. Cup My Cakes was born.”

“Butter’s kind of the lynchpin, then?”

I nod. “Indeed. We owe all our baking know-how to her. Well, and her Noni back in Hawaii, who taught Butter everything she knows.”

“I feel like I need to send her a fruit basket or something.” He laughs. “My team is obsessed with those cupcakes. And to think it all started because you ladies realized how much adulting truly sucks.”

I take another drink. “I’m pretty sure that’s how Charlie’s Angels formed.”

Before I can turn the conversation to the fantastic parts of his day, he turns in his stool to face me, leaning one elbow on the bar. “Kat, in the interest of keeping this second drink dream alive, I’m going for gold here. I have a confession.”

I make my eyes go wide. “Oh, my. Okay.” Turning dramatically in my seat, I place my hands in my lap. “I’m ready.”

“Yes, I did change my shirt because I was meeting you for drinks. And I actually let myself fret about it for a while, too. So when you noticed, I almost fell out of my chair. And I ordered what you were drinking when I came in because I was so nervous, I honestly in that moment forgot what it is I normally drink. And, Kat, I have been buying from your shop for five months, and every week for five months, I’ve thought about how I might someday work up to asking you out. When you said someone was getting married at the shop the other day, for a second I thought maybe it was you and I’d missed my window.” He grins at me, and I take special notice of his white-but-not-too-white teeth. “Now, I’m not saying I’d ever anticipated those particular circumstances bringing this date about, but I’m glad they did.” He holds his hands up in front of him. “Our glasses are almost empty. So. That’s my Hail Mary for a second drink.”

I tilt my head to the side as he takes the last sip from his glass, setting it back down on his napkin with an ominous clink.

This is wrong. Ben isn’t here because he’s emotionally confused by his significant other dating someone new. He’s not here because he’s debating whether or not to try practice sex with me. He’s not here on the whim of a bad mood and a semi-joking idea.

Here’s here because he likes me. Because he has been thinking for some time of being here with me.

I feel genuinely sick to my stomach with guilt at the thought of what’s unfolded in this bar. I want to come clean with him about the reality of my current romantic entanglements—but more than that, selfishly, cowardly, I want to keep feeling what it’s like to be on a first date with Ben Cleary.

“That was a pretty solid Hail Mary,” I offer.

“I went for it,” he says. “Although, to sweeten the pot, I will say, were there to be a second drink, I would also be willing to throw in dinner, because I’m a gentleman like that. And because I’m hungry.” He narrows his eyes at me. “Wait. Unless...you don’t study people about their food the way you do with their drinks, do you?”

I shake my head. “God, no. That’s not okay. Drinks are drinks. Food is for eating and magic and shutting the hell up. You don’t mess with food.”

“See, now I know we can be friends.”

I gesture to the bartender, and Ben’s lip twitches ever so slightly. I take a breath and say, “We’ll take two Guinnesses.”

* * *

All in all, this was a weird day.

Back in my apartment, I set the two ridiculously large boxes of sexual therapy devices on my coffee table.

It’s incredibly late, and I have to be up at dawn to be at the shop, but I’ve got only twenty-nine days to beat this deadline. Shannon’s right; this is never going to work if I keep finding reasons to put it off. It’s my deadline, and I need to bloody well stick with it.

I open the boxes and start laying out the bounty. Damn, the gals really spared no expense. I think they’ve overestimated the actual number of vaginas I have.

Flipping through the Encyclopedia Vaginica Shannon printed off for me, I realize that I remember most of these instructions from my doctor. Start slowly, be gentle, go small, work your way up. The vagina is a muscle, I need to retrain it, yada yada.

Okay, so this isn’t so bad. Shannon managed to get through this in three months, and that was with two tiny humans at home demanding all her attention, so I can totally do this in four weeks. It’s like if I tore my rotator cuff or something. I’d have to do all these stretching exercises to get it back into fighting shape. Not that I want my special to be fighting anyone.

Special. Damn it, Liz.

“Make this a calm and relaxing experience. Play soothing music, burn scented candles, take calming breaths.”

I don’t have any scented candles, and I wonder if Netflix would count in place of calming music?

I take a deep breath. I can do this. It says this should be a twice-daily routine, but I’m wondering if I can work it in at bedtime and before work. Brush teeth, wash face, train special.

I grab an armful of the therapy gear from the boxes and walk them into my bedroom. Tossing them on my bed, I start changing for sleep.

I had a good time with Ben. While I feel like an absolute monster of a person for not being more open about the realities of my life right now, I’ve justified the omissions by reminding myself that most people don’t unload their entire life stories on the first date.

Jammies on, I head to the bathroom to scrub my face and teeth. I think back to Ben’s smile. He really does have nice teeth. And that jaw, though. Seriously. It’s criminally defined.

As I give my molars a good once-over, I can’t help but wonder what I’ve been thinking by ignoring such a huge part of my life for two years. While it’s great that my militant drive to succeed has gotten the shop into pretty solid shape, doing so at the complete expense of my romantic life seems a little extreme.

I don’t remember the last time Ryan and I went out for drinks just to go. Sometimes we go for dinner out, and maybe even a movie on Saturdays, but for the most part, we have been in stuck in the deepest rut ever. Like, natural sunlight can’t reach the depths of this rut.

And it’s been nearly four years. Two of which have been wonky as hell and entirely without physical intimacy. Four years in a relationship is an eternity in your twenties.

But I’m about to dance out of my twenties. And two years of special solitude is more than long enough, damn it. So I’m getting my nethers in line, and then things will get back to awesome with Ryan, and we are about to land a high-check contract. I’m going to be one of those women who has it all.

But right now, all I want is some Doctor Who—and to figure out what the hell a dilator actually is, so I can go to sleep.

Okay. This thing says five to ten minutes—depending on my comfort level—lots of lubricant, then yay sleep.

I’m trying really hard to not think about how odd this all is. But it’s medicinal. Medicinal sex toys. That’s something I could totally explain to my landlady if she came strolling in.

The thing I bought at the shop with Butter was too, uh, sizable, so I’ll have to start smaller. Looking at the pile of items, I feel like I’m in the middle of a hidden camera show. Any minute now, my mom will come bursting in with a camera crew and the pope.

Those must be the calming thoughts the instructions talked about.

Relaxing environment. I grab my remote and queue up an episode of the Tenth Doctor. I shut the lights off and take a deep breath, pushing all thoughts of Ryan and Alice and contracts out of my mind. I ignore the fact that I’m pawing at the protective wrap on a bottle of water-based lubricant my oldest friend and coworkers had overnight delivered to our bakery.

I choose the smallest rubber device, which is innocuously flesh-colored, and take a breath. Here we go.

This isn’t so bad. The papers said to try thirty seconds at first. I start counting in my head.

I’m not a prude by any means, but something about this feels impossibly awkward with the good Doctor allons-y-ing across my TV.

I don’t think I made it to thirty seconds, but I go ahead and stop anyway. I put the suddenly less innocuous-looking thing on a tissue on my nightstand and shut off my TV. So, maybe no Netflix. Quiet therapy. Time alone with some Zen-like thoughts. That will be good. I can focus more.

And that was pretty easy, so maybe I’ll try something a little larger in scale.

This one is inexplicably purple and sparkly. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to represent something or if it’s just supposed to be festive, but, hey, whatever floats your special.

I take another deep breath.

This isn’t working quite as well. I’m startled to meet instant resistance, and my mind flashes with the image of an eyelid slamming shut at the sight of a giant purple glittering finger poking at it.

Ow. OW.

“Fucking ouch!” As a reflex, my hand jerks away from my body, and the sparkly purple faux-penis goes flying across my bedroom. I regret it immediately. “What the hell? It wasn’t that much bigger!” I say this to no one, and I really super hope the pope isn’t coming.

I look down at my bed, comforter covered in naughty implements, and a feeling of dread settles in.

I’m never having sex again.

9

Any morning that starts with me in a backless gown and my bare ass on a tissue-paper-covered exam table is not a good day.

I don’t know what I was thinking. Well, yes, I do. I thought I’d dive right into therapy, and it would be all rainbows and lollipops, and my vagina and I would go skipping off into the sunset together.

Instead, the therapy was kind of awful. It was actually quite painful, but I kept trying, and I was up half the night battling my lady bits. Now I’m exhausted and my goddamn special hurts.

And I’ll admit, I’m panicking a little.

I just had to go and give Ryan this stupid deadline. I thought for sure I’d stroll through this whole thing and be ready for nookie and anniversaries with weeks to spare.

Add in the pressure of getting things ready for our presentation to the Coopertown Ravens concessions committee, and I am about two seconds from completely flipping my shit on everything.

There’s a knock at the door, and I say, “Come in!” in an annoyingly happy voice. Why is it so hard to sound normal when you’re not wearing pants?

Dr. Snow comes in and gives me a friendly hello. “Kat, it’s been a long time. How are you?”

“I’ve had better days,” I say, shifting my weight and regretting it as the tissue paper crinkles loudly under my ass. “Look Doc, I’m going to level with you here. My junk is broken, and I need you to fix it, okay?”

She freezes halfway through sitting down on her rolling doctor’s chair. “I’m sorry?”

“Two years ago, you told me I had vaginismus. Well, I still have it. There has to be a pill by now, right? They have, like, fifty different kinds of Viagra. Tell me someone has stepped up to help ladykind out on this one.”

Dr. Snow finally sits all the way down and looks down at her high-tech tablet medical chart. “Okay, give me a minute to catch up here.”

She starts scrolling through my medical history, and I swing my legs nervously on the exam table. I look around the room, desperate for a distraction. On the wall is a large full-color poster of a uterus with a full-term baby lodged inside. I’m probably overreacting, but I feel like that baby is judging me a little bit.

“Okay,” she says finally. “Yes, two years ago I diagnosed you with secondary vaginismus. And—”

“Wait, secondary? I don’t remember that. Is there a first kind of vaginismus?”

Dr. Snow squints at me as though she’s not sure if I’m being serious. I put my hands in my lap and try to look composed. “Secondary means you haven’t always had the condition. You, at one time, were able to have sex without pain. This was something that developed.” She crosses her legs at the knees and balances the tablet on her leg. “Patients with primary vaginismus have never been able to have intercourse without pain, or possibly at all. Some aren’t even able to have pelvic exams or wear tampons, depending on the severity of their condition.”

I involuntarily clench my knees together. That sounds horrible. Here I am, making a screaming fuss over two years, and there are women out there dealing with a significantly more hard-core scenario than me.

This isn’t my finest moment.

“Can people with primary... I mean, can they fix it?”

She nods, and my knees unclench. “The treatment is the same, and in most cases, a full recovery is possible. As is my expectation with you.”

I exhale sharply. “Okay, yes. Say more things like that, please.”

Looking at me sternly, Dr. Snow continues, “So, that was two years ago. You’re telling me you’ve been unable to have sex this entire time?”

“Sort of,” I say, smoothing my gown down over my legs. “I kinda just forgot to deal with it.”

She blinks at me. “You forgot?”

“I was busy! I was getting a new business off the ground, so it wasn’t a big priority, and the whole intimacy thing with my boyfriend sort of took a back seat. Then I realized it had been almost two whole freaking years, and oh my god, that’s a really long time. So I tried to do the therapy like you told me, and it’s not working very well, and I would just really like to get past this and have sex so I can move on, please. I need your help here.”

She’s still blinking at me. “You...forgot to have sex.”

“It slipped my mind,” I say, sighing. “But seriously, though! Tell me what to do.”

She shakes her head a little. “When you say the therapy isn’t working very well, what do you mean?”

“Well, it hurt really bad, for starters. And at first I was able to do it, but then I couldn’t get anything in there at all. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I have a bunch of printouts. I’m following all the directions. We got all the things, like it said on the website.”

“‘We’? You and your boyfriend?”

My stomach flip-flops a little at the word boyfriend, and it makes me all the more uncomfortable. “No, me and my friends. It’s been a group effort. Well, I mean, I’m doing the therapy alone, obviously. But they’re cheering me on. One of them actually went through this herself years back, and she’s been giving me advice. The whole ‘two years’ thing hasn’t gone over well for anyone.”

“You seem really focused on the ‘two years’ aspect of this.”

“Because it’s been two years, Doc.”

“That’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself,” Dr. Snow says calmly. “How long have you been doing the therapy?”

“Well. Technically, I started last night,” I admit. Then, a little defensively, “Why do you keep blinking at me?”

“Kat,” she says, setting her tablet down on the counter beside her. “This is a process. If you sprained your ankle, I wouldn’t expect you to have full motor function in a day. It takes time. You can’t rush it.”

“I do know that,” I insist, feeling really pitiful. “I do, but you can’t blame me for being a tad impatient, okay? Look, is there anything I can do to, like, speed things up a little?”

“I don’t recommend speeding anything up beyond what your body is telling you it is ready for,” she says in a measured tone. “If anything, it will make the situation worse. And honestly, it doesn’t sound like you’re approaching your therapy with a calm demeanor, which might explain why you’re having trouble.”

“You’re telling me I should have committed to the soothing music and scented candles, aren’t you?”

“They wouldn’t hurt. This is about retraining your muscles, yes, but it involves your mental state just as much. If you’re anxious, your vagina will be, too.”

Reflexively I pout. “Okay, yeah, that makes sense.”

“Are you sexually active with your boyfriend or anyone else at the moment?”

I narrow my eyes and use every ounce of will I have to push the burning feeling that’s creeping up my neck back below the paper gown. “Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

I sit up a little straighter. “Well, I’m not yet, but I’d like to be, and I sort of have plans to get, um, active.”

“I’m actually afraid to ask, Kat.”

“I just mean I’d like to give things another shot in bed with my boyfriend without it ending in a car crash of flaming vaginas.”

“That’s...very colorful imagery.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

She waves her hand in front of her. “That’s a great goal. Of course, I urge you to practice safe sex, and I’d like to discuss birth control options with you before we finish, as I see you aren’t currently taking anything.”

“Okay.”

“Most important, you need to take this very, very slowly. This isn’t a race. I understand your desire to take control of the situation, but if you try to push this beyond what you’re ready for, you’ll make things worse, Kat. Your partner will need to understand that, as well.”

I nod, ignoring the screaming voice in my head that keeps chanting twenty-eight days left. “Okay. Got it.”

“Did the two of you have any luck with the techniques I gave you on your last visit?”

My eyes glaze over a little, remembering how impossibly awkward attempting the couples section of the therapy pamphlets with Ryan was back when this started. He seemed so put out and uncomfortable with everything.

Ryan’s a very nice guy, and he’d give anyone the shirt off his back, but at the same time, he’s got a selfish streak in him. Sex was easy for him, and he didn’t seem to understand that there were circumstances outside my control that he could have assisted with to make that situation a little easier.

It wasn’t a high point in our relationship.

“Not particularly,” I answer honestly. “Which is why I’m very focused on what I need to be doing first.”

“I can understand that,” Dr. Snow agrees, much to my surprise. “It’s something that needs to be handled in whatever way works best for each individual.”

“Yep.” I nod and try to look like a person whose personal life isn’t a raging case of fuckery.

“And I’d like to refer you to one of the physical therapists over at the hospital. Even if you don’t want them to do the actual therapy, they’ll be able to walk you through the techniques and help you through this process.”

I shake my head. “I think I’ve got it, Doc.”

“There’s no shame in accepting help,” she says, and I feel scolded. “This is a common disorder, and you’re certainly not the first woman to need this treatment.”

“It’s not an embarrassment thing,” I reply, feeling indignant. “I just mean that I know I can figure it out on my own. If I can’t, I’ll take the referral, okay?”

She eyes me suspiciously. “I would feel a lot better about things if you’d at least go talk with one of the therapists,” she says. “You could have an appointment just to discuss applications of the therapy techniques and get support. In fact, you could meet weekly with the therapists just to check in without having them involved in the actual therapy at all. And if, at any time, you feel like you might benefit from their help, you’d already be in the system, and they’d be familiar with your situation.”

I can almost hear Shannon’s commentary on this conversation. Better safe than sorry, she went to an actual therapist, and la-di-da, it all worked out for her in three short months.

I sigh again in defeat. “Fine. I’ll do one appointment, just to talk to them.”

She smiles kindly at me. “You’re pooling all your resources,” she says. “It can’t hurt to have a second line of offense ready if you need it.”

I cross my legs at the ankles and swing them awkwardly. “So, where did we land on a pill, by the way?”

Dr. Snow takes in a slow breath, and I think I can hear her whisper-counting to ten. “Actually, I’m inclined to prescribe you an antianxiety medication to take as needed.”

“I’m not anxious.”

“Are you kidding?”

I frown at her. “Rude.”

“You are a ball of tension right now, Kat.”

I throw my arms up. “I’m not wearing any underwear. My ass is stuck to tissue paper. I’ve got this big assignment at work, and if I don’t figure out how to make perfect little ravens out of frosting, then Butter can’t go see her Noni in Hawaii, Shannon can’t take her kids to meet Mickey Mouse, and Liz can’t go on a honeymoon. And because I don’t think you are fully grasping the severity of the situation—two years, Doc. I don’t need an anxiety pill, I need to get laid.”

“Kat.”

“Fine, I’m anxious.”

“If you’re anxious, so’s your vagina.”

10

Liz slams a bottle of food dye down on her workstation. “I can’t get the coloring right!” she snaps. It’s not a typical Thursday morning in the shop until someone has a meltdown over food dye. We haven’t even hit the morning rush yet, so we’re meeting our quota early.

“On what?” Shannon asks. Butter is paused with her glitter brush hanging in midair. It’s not often Liz’s voice reaches a decibel above gentle breeze.

“The boob-cake,” Liz whines. “The...well, the parts.”

I bite the inside of my cheek, trying not to laugh. “The nipple?”

Her face flushes a hot pink. “Yes, fine. And the other parts. Who am I modeling this after? Whose boob does this need to look like? I only know what mine look like!”

Butter shrugs, sending a dusting of glitter across the table. “Make it look like mine. I’ve got nice boobs.”

“You do have fantastic boobs,” I agree.

Shannon makes a face. “I never thought about that. Should it look like the woman who ordered it? Is there such a thing as a basic boob?”

“You see?” Liz squeals. “I don’t want to offend someone!”

I’m sitting at the desk working on sketches for the Coopertown Ravens, so I fire up the laptop. “Should I...Google boobs?” My mind floods with the potential search results, and I frown. “Actually, I see no way that could end well, so maybe not.”

Shannon frowns. “We are a business run entirely by women. We have a plethora of boobs right here. Googling boobs is beneath us.”

“Okay, who did the lady who ordered the boob-cake look like the most?” Butter asks.

Shannon studies us all with one hand on her hip and a piping bag in the other. “I guess Kat? Same kind of pale skin, darkish hair. She was taller and had smaller boobs, though.”

“Thanks.”

Butter waves her hand casually, throwing more glitter around. “So just make a boob like Kat’s. There ya go.”

“I don’t know what her boobs look like, Butter,” Liz huffs.

“Show her your boobs, Kat.”

“Butter.” Shannon sighs.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” I say. I stand up, pull my shirt away from my chest and give my ladies a good once-over. I do have to wiggle a little to get the proper lighting. With my hands deep in my neckline and ladies hoisted out of my bra, I hear the front entrance open and scowl. “So help me Odin, if that’s Ben coming in, I’m going to burn this place to the ground.”

Shannon pokes her head around the door and lets out a whoosh of air. “Nope, just customers.” She scurries into the front to handle them, and I get back to my boobs.

“I don’t think he’d dare come back in here when it’s quiet without setting off some sirens before he opens the door,” Butter says, getting back to her glitter-dusting.

“He’d better not,” I grumble. I tuck my dirigibles back into my bra and go to wash my hands. “Even my lack of poise has its limits.” I dry my hands off and join Liz at her station. “Okay, here.” I grab the dye and start whipping up a color of fondant that is as close to the color of my own nipples as I can get. Which is easily the weirdest thing I’ve done this week, cake-wise.

“When I went to culinary school,” Liz says pitifully, “I never thought I’d be trying to match the color of my friends’ boobs.”

“It’s a proud day for us all,” I say, rolling out the fondant. “You can use this for the areola and nipple, I’d think.” Liz makes a horrified squeak. “We’re all adults here, baby. We can say areola. It’s fine.”

“Maybe I should have been a dentist like my mom wanted,” Liz whines and starts shaping the nipple. “It’s not too late to go back to school, right?”

Butter pops her head back up. “It’s funny,” she says, pointing at Liz. “You can’t say vagina, but you’re out having all kinds of about-to-be-newlywed sex with your fiancé, and then there’s Kat, who isn’t bothered by anything anywhere, and she’s the one with the broken special. There’s some unbalanced universe for you.”

She goes back to decorating her cake, and Liz and I stare at each other awkwardly for a moment. Shannon comes back in and asks, “Did we get it sorted? What boob are we going with?”

“Kat’s,” Butter says. “I’ve still got the best boobs, though.”

“She’s not wrong,” I agree. I curtsy and head back over to the sketch pad on my desk. I’ve got a small pile of royal icing next to it that I’m crafting tiny ravens out of. “Shannon, check these out.” I hold up a tiny bird. “I’m not sure how practical they are, but they sure look cool.”

“Ooh,” Shannon coos. “These are amazing!”

“I don’t think I could swing a thousand of them per game, though. They’re stupidly intricate.” I rub my hand over my forehead. “But they’d certainly make us look more badass than the other shops.”

“Maybe they could be for big events? Like for homecoming or playoffs or something.”

I shrug. “Could be.” I take the little candy raven back from her and set him on the desk. He is pretty boss. I’d likely go blind or succumb to arthritis in my thirties if I tried to make them on the regular, though.

But we really need this contract.

The idea of costing my team this deal kills me. It won’t be the flavors or the cake that does it—we rule on taste. Our online reviews always trump the other shops. My assumption is the only other shop that counts as true competition is The Cakery, but this is a college basketball team. Pretention isn’t going to get them as far as bitchin’ little candied ravens would.

The art is going to make the real impression, so I need to get it right. Every free moment I’ve had at the shop that isn’t dedicated to staring at my own tits has been set aside to perfecting the toppings to these cakes. Butter and Shannon are whipping up batch after batch of potential flavor combinations.

I know they’ll nail it. So I can’t screw this up.

“You nervous about therapy today, Pumpkin?” Shannon asks casually as she slices through a tray of brownies.

“No,” I say, turning my attention back to my notebook. “Why do you ask?”

“Because your face is all squinched up.”

I snort. “I’m thinking about ravens. And besides, the appointment is just for intake. I’m not doing the therapy there.”

Though Dr. Snow wasn’t super impressed with my refusal even to consider doing an official appointment or two, I left her office armed with new birth control pills and anxiety meds for my special, a stack of brightly colored pamphlets discussing the disorder and how to conquer it, and a new determination to get this shit done.

I might have missed the moral of her pep talk, but in my mind, if I can just get past this, things will calm down.

Shannon sighs. “I know you want to do all of it on your own, but it’s really not that bad with the therapist. It’s kind of like a half-hour Pap smear.”

“That’s what hell is,” Butter says, pointing her glitter brush at Shannon. “Hell is an infinite Pap smear. That’s not how you talk someone into going to physical therapy, girl.”

“I’m with Butter.” I shudder. “And I can handle it on my own. But I’ll keep the endless Pap smear on the back burner.”

Shannon glares at us both, but I turn back to the desk and resume working on my ravens.

“It’s okay to ask for help, you know,” she mutters into her mug of coffee.

“I do,” I say, narrowing my eyes at the majestic candy bird resting on my notebook. “I’m asking the universe to help this raven not take seventeen minutes to make, but still look this awesome.”

11

I’m still wearing my pants, and my ass isn’t stuck to tissue paper, but there’s a backless gown on a tray a few feet away that’s not instilling hope in me.

The physical therapy pavilion is nothing like what I expected. It’s the size of a gymnasium, but with carpeted floors and equipment everywhere. When I walked in, I saw the whole gamut of those in need. A little old lady pulling what looked like giant rubber bands away from the wall. A small child with braces on his knees walking between parallel bars. A businessman doing awkward-looking stretches on a table.

Earlier, in the waiting room, I couldn’t help but wonder how many women there were waiting for special therapy.

Now, I’m wondering if there’s a comparable therapy for men.

If so, I imagine it would involve...lifting, somehow.

This line of thinking is making me question my own sanity in a big way.

I’m in one of the private rooms off to the side, as I’m assuming vagina therapy isn’t something they’d want to parade in front of the elderly and small children.

On the other hand, as the owner of a broken vagina, I’m not sure how comfortable I am with there being only a cloth curtain serving as a door to this little room.

Perhaps something with a dead bolt would be better suited.

The curtain whisks back, and a man appears. “Hi, Miss Carmichael,” he says with a smile. All I can think about is how mortified I would have been if I’d had my feet up in the stirrups, on display for everyone to see. He didn’t even knock!

“I’m David, and I’ll be getting you started here.”

“Are you the intake guy?”

He sits on a rolling stool a few feet away. I see the therapy table over there, but I’m not budging from this chair. “No, I’m your PT. Now, let’s look at your chart.”

I blink at him for a moment. “I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re the vagina therapist?”

His eyes dart up to me, and he squirms on his stool a little. “Well, I mean, I’m a physical therapist, and that’s one of the types of therapy I do, yes. Although if you’d be more comfortable with a female therapist, we can absolutely reassign you.”

I shrug. “It’s not that. I was just wondering what would make a guy want to grow up and be a vagina therapist.” Some frightening mental imagery hits me and I mutter, “Actually, never mind. I have an idea of the appeal.”

He lets out an affronted laugh. “Like I said, I’m a physical therapist. This is only part of what I do. It’s something I was trained in, just like I was trained in all sorts of other therapies.”

I suddenly realize exactly how rude I’m being and feel a flush of embarrassment. I’ve got to get my nerves under control or someone is definitely going to slap me.

He adds, “One of our other therapists, Constance, is a woman, but she’s our reigning champ of groin injuries, so it’s not really about the equipment.”

There it is. Penis therapy. I’m tempted to hunt Constance down and inquire about the specifics.

Sighing, I offer, “I’m sorry. That was horribly impolite. I’m feeling a bit twitchy about all of this.”

“Understandable,” he says kindly. “Give me just a minute to get caught up on your chart, and we can get started.”

I tap my toes to the beat of some unidentifiable pop song I heard on the bus ride over, and he reads silently. He seems like a nice enough guy. A bit dude-bro, to be honest. The sleeves of his oxford are rolled up, his tie is too loose and he’s wearing cargo pants. He’s buff enough for me to assume that he spends his time between patients using all the equipment in the pit to get in extra workouts.

“So,” he says when he finishes reading, “this has been going on for about two years? Can you tell me a little bit about what was happening in your life then?”

I frown at him. “Why?”

“Because,” he explains slowly, “if I know what might have triggered the disorder, it can help me customize your treatment.”

My face forms into an awkward smile. “Uh, well. I was going through a really busy time, starting up a business, and so, well, you know, it’d been a while for my boyfriend and me, intimacy-wise, and when we tried, it didn’t work. A few weeks later I went to the doc, she said vaginismus, and here we are.”

He starts writing notes in my file and casually asks, “What’s your business?”

“Oh, um, it’s a bakery? A cupcake shop. Cup My Cakes.”

His eyes light up. “Is that the shop Shannon Brimley owns?”

“Yes!” I reply, excited to be talking about something that isn’t my vagina. “We started it together. She’s my best friend.” A horrid thought pops into my head. “Wait. Are you...were you her vagina therapist, too? Because I know she went to one when she had vaginismus. And I’m sorry, while she and I are the best of pals and share everything, I don’t think I can share vagina therapists with her.”

David makes a little popping noise as his mouth falls slightly open. “No. No, I wasn’t her therapist. Our kids go to the same school. She always brings awesome snacks for the PTA meetings. And you guys have really good cupcakes.”

I slap my hand over my mouth. “Jesus. So I just outed my friend for having broken junk to the PTA?”

His eyes go wide as he focuses on my file again. “It’s totally fine. So, after your diagnosis—”

“Her vagina isn’t broken anymore!” I insist. “That was like, seven years ago. As far as I know, her bits are in tip-top shape now.”

He doesn’t look up from the folder, but takes a deep breath. “I’m very glad to hear that.” Closing his eyes, he repeats, “After your diagnosis, what kinds of treatments did you try?”

Shannon is going to flat-out kill me dead. “Uh, well, nothing, really. Dr. Snow gave me some pamphlets and stuff I could try by myself and with my boyfriend, but things didn’t go particularly well, and I never got around to the rest of the therapies.”

Now he looks up. “Never got around to them?”

My brain is preoccupied with images of Shannon shoving my head into a preheated oven. “Yeah, you know. Things were super stressful with the shop, and our relationship was already a bit strained. Plus it was all so...awkward. Ryan offered to help at first, do the exercises and whatnot, but it all felt too bizarre to him, I guess.” My foot starts involuntarily tapping the pop song again as I push images of Shannon with a chef’s knife out of my head. “I feel really bad, though. You know, this kind of thing can be really hard on a relationship. Especially one that’s not going great to begin with.”

My stomach fills with the heavy sense of guilt, mixed with a hint of vulnerability, and resentment I don’t understand. “I even told Ryan he could sleep with other people until the problem sorted itself out, but I don’t know if he is. I mean, I know he’s got a date, but maybe they won’t actually sleep together. That could happen, right?”

David looks rather stunned. “This is...this is not really the kind of information I need to design a treatment plan for you.”

Feeling exposed, and wondering why in the good goddamn I just shared all that with him in the first place, I indignantly say, “But you’re a therapist!”

“I’m not that kind of therapist.”

This is going really well.

I clench my hands into fists and release them a few times. “Look, I’m sorry. This is all very uncomfortable for me.”

He sighs. “Why don’t we get the exam out of the way now? I can let you get changed and be back in a minute—”

“I knew it!” I yelp, pointing at the gown on the tray. “Can I not keep my pants on for one doctor’s visit!?”

“I’m not a doctor.”

“Oh, who asked you?” I snap. I’ve lost any grip on social constructs, and I know I’m being an ass-wagon, but I can’t reel the humiliation in enough to stop. Every horrible thing that flies from my mouth just fuels the panic. “Look, I did the exam with Dr. Snow. I’m sure she wrote notes. I’m not doing another one.”

He drops his head back and lets out an exasperated sigh. “I need to assess the severity of your condition so I can give you a proper treatment plan.”

“Well, you can assess it with my pants on.” I sit up straight. There is nothing I want more in the world than to flee from this room immediately. “And it’s vaginismus. It’s like blinking involuntarily when something gets too close to your eye.”

He gives up and sets the file down on the little table by the curtain. “I... I know what the disorder is, Miss Carmichael.” He leans forward and puts his fingers on his temples. “Okay, how about this? Let’s go over equipment and we can discuss techniques. I’ll try to do a generalized plan that you can alter to fit your needs, okay?”

I cross my legs at the knees and exhale with a haughty sound. I don’t think I’ve ever made a haughty noise in my life. What the hell is wrong with me?

“That would be fine,” I say.

My brain is now flashing with images of Shannon and David taking turns chasing me with brûlée torches.

He shakes his head ever so slightly and walks over to the tray. Carefully removing the backless gown and setting it on the exam table, he wheels the tray over near me.

If I were to walk into a dungeon made explicitly for torture, I can say with absolute certainty that this tray would be in there.

It looks like a larger, more horrifying version of what sits next to you at the dentist’s office. Everything is sitting on a large piece of blue gauze lined with plastic. Dilators of varying sizes, clinical-looking bottles of lubricant, and very scary silver devices.

There’s not a sparkling purple item in the lot, and it all smells of chemical disinfectants.

My legs pop up of their own accord, and I bump into the tray as I stand. A dilator goes flying and lands with a loud metallic crash.

“I’m sorry,” I say, smoothing down my shirt, silently begging my heart to stop trying to beat out of my chest. “Cramp in my leg. Sorry.”

David bends down to get the fallen implement, and looks like he’s definitely had enough of me. “It’s fine. Now, this is what you’ll need to buy for your own use, or we can loan things out as needed.”

“Nope!” I trill. “I’m good. Got it all. Totally set. In fact, I think we’re good here.”

“But we haven’t discussed a treatment plan!”

I grab my purse off the back of my chair. “And see, I think you were so efficient, I’ve got a handle on things from here. I’ll check in again if there are any problems. Thank you so much for your time.”

Before he can say anything else, I scuttle past him and yank the curtain open. I’m stopped dead in my desperate retreat by a sight I am almost certain I’m hallucinating.

Walking through the therapy pavilion, not ten feet away, is Ben freaking Cleary.

I fight several instincts at once. To dive back behind the curtain. To drop to the floor and army-crawl my way out of here. To run like the coward I am.

“Kat?” he calls. Too late. I’ve been spotted.

“Oh, hey!” I say, managing to keep the shrillness out of my voice far better than I expected. “How’s it going?”

Ben smiles, seeming a little confused, and walks over, a boy of maybe fourteen in tow. “What are you doing here?”

“What?” I ask, trying to think of an appropriate excuse. I notice his tie has tiny Spider-Mans slinging webs all over it. “I was just in the area.” I grab my phone and pretend to read something terribly important. “And actually, I’m running late, so I’ll see you later!”

He looks more confused than ever. “In the area... Wait... Were you looking for me?”

I lower my phone and stare at him. “Why would I be looking for you here?”

Speaking very slowly, he says, “Because I work here.”

My eyes go from Ben to the teen, who is now looking at his own phone, clearly bored as hell. I flash back to our date and rewind to the conversation we had about jobs. We talked about my job, but we got distracted by Ben’s Hail Mary before I could ask about his job. And though he’s been coming into the shop for months to get cupcakes for his coworkers, it never occurred to me to ask him what he and those coworkers do.

Oh my god. David mentioned our cupcakes. What if Ben is the one who brings him those cakes?

“You’re...” I try to swallow, but there’s no moisture in my throat. “You’re a physical therapist?”

The curtain whooshes open farther behind me, and David appears. “Miss Carmichael, you should take these notes with you. They give you some treatment options and some guides to different resources you can find online to assist with the process. Of course, if you need anything, you can give us a call. I, or maybe one of the other therapists, will help however you’ll let us.”

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