Brynne McAdoo

Dee's Toy Box Superstore

adult shop . . .
exchanging deflated smiles
with a blow-up doll

We're milling through the aisles, killing the afternoon. We won't bump into your wife here.

You can't make up your mind.

"Let's ask the blonde behind the counter," I say, tapping my boots, reading the back of the Diving Dolphin Couples Kit.

"She's about my daughter's age," you say, your brown eyes narrowing above your glasses. You run a tan finger along the prongs of a Rockin Rabbit.

I nod and think: Your daughter's blonde, too. So's your wife. But I change my thoughts back to us.

"Too bad we didn't know each other when our bodies were young and hard," I say.

"No. It wouldn't have worked then," you say with a smile and then a sigh.

Blondie gives us a demonstration of Venus Butterfly, her favorite, she tells us with a fake wink. She wants to strap it onto an inflatable doll that is only sex parts—no head—but I tell her we can use our imagination. A guy wearing a hooded sweatshirt in the magazine aisle listens in.

"You really should carry a gun in here," I say to Blondie, and then can't believe this popped out of my mouth. I'm the liberal, for god's sake. You're the republican. But it is kind of sexy, that concealed magnum of yours.

my cowboy lover—
the new kick
in my resoled boots

Back in the non-vibrating dongs, you wave your arm across the row. "Want anything?" you ask as you pick up a glass probe that glints in the fluorescent light.

"No. I prefer your fingers," I say, looking up to you. I reach for your hand.

You look away, put the package back on the shelf, your hand as flat as a fizz-less ginger ale, the kind I drink after throwing up. This is the moment I know you are going back to her.

after our affair—
petal by petal
unpeeling the rose