Along the wall opposite the register were your dildos of various colors, shapes and sizes, beads, plugs, transportable vaginas, et cetera, while holding guard behind the register a young man was reading Barely Legal, and not for the articles either. Behind her stood racks of lace, leather and latex, and behind those were the movies. The man didn’t look up from his magazine.

It was something Rose had always wanted to do and she was alone now, and he was thousands of miles away and she wouldn’t see him for weeks, so she did it; she did it because she could and because she was lonely. She picked up a dildo, purple, with a gently sloping arc, and suppressed a giggle. She thought about some woman buying it tomorrow or next week or a year from now and making a home for it in the bottom of her sock drawer. She thought of her mother buying it, her father finding it, and the desire slipped away. She put it back down, slightly repulsed.

Of the objects themselves, the paraphernalia, Rose only thought of them as serving their purpose, which was to provide her with the nearest approximation of him as possible without him in the flesh; his proxy. She could have just as easily gone to a bar only he didn’t drink, and in support of this she’d tried not to drink herself, and to go to a bar to miss him seemed like it would only make her miss him more and in entirely the wrong way.

She could have gone to a McDonald’s and filled her loneliness with a Big Mac but she didn’t, she came here instead, and now she felt just as sick as if she’d eaten half a dozen Big Macs. The bell above the door rang as two young men walked in. They looked fresh, grinning from ear to ear with a thousand dick jokes on their lips.

They were both tall, but one was clean-shaven and the other wore a beard. It was the clean-shaven one who smiled at Rose, a kind of hangdog with a wink kind of smile, the kind of smile that said, Aha! We’re both caught. Well then, there’s no point fooling ourselves anymore, shall we get on with it? He was handsome, sharp, but he was a dog. Considering the setting, even a cat would have looked like a dog.

Rose moved on to the rack of lingerie nearest the toys, where the two men were now standing, made a burrow out of the space between the wall and the rack away from everyone’s sight. Romance was in the mystery and there was hardly any mystery here, and what mystery there was was all in the physical—what goes where and how does this work and what do you suppose this is for? She wondered what constituted betrayal. She felt disloyal just being here, even if it was all in aid of missing him. Did penetration count? Even of a foreign device? Was simulated stimulation betrayal?

“Take a look at this,” she overheard the bearded one say as he picked up an extra-large double-sided dildo, black. “You think this will work?”

“Nah, Jerry,” said the other one. “That’s too big.”

Jerry put it back, picked up another, significantly smaller, flesh-colored, with just one head. “How about this, then?”

“Shit, I don’t know.” The clean-shaven one looked around, caught sight of Rose and walked over. “Excuse me? Ma’am? Excuse me, can I ask you a question?” He was standing in front of her, holding up the dildo for her appraisal. “Hi there,” he went on. “Sorry to bother you, but what do you think about something like this? Is it too big? Not big enough? Would you buy one for yourself?”

“Sorry?”

“It’s not for us,” he said, smiling like they had this in common, like they could mitigate each other’s shame. “I mean, it is, but we’re not going to use it for its designated purpose, right?”

“The Erotic Ball,” explained Jerry, the bearded one. “A costume party. Tom here’s going as a priest, but instead of a cross hanging from his neck he’s going to wear a dildo, see?”

“So what do you say?” asked Tom, dildo still in hand. “Do you think this one’s good?”

“Tom and Jerry,” repeated Rose. “Like the cartoon cat and mouse.”

“Yeah,” Jerry grinned. “That was our other idea, only Tom here refused to wear a tail. He said it was emasculating.” He shook his head. “Like a dildo’s so much better.”

“Listen,” Tom interrupted. “We’re going to get a drink down the block after this. Do you want to join us?”

“Excuse me?”

“A drink,” he repeated. “With us.”

“Are you kidding?” she asked like he really was, and as the young man scowled, she took a closer look at the dildo in his hand. She couldn’t believe it. It was his penis. His. Whatever kind of spell or voodoo it was under, had her under, it had somehow traveled from thousands of miles away and into the hand of this douche bag asking her out on a date. It was what she’d been looking for. It was in his hand, and now that she’d found it, she wanted to return it to its rightful owner, wanted to wrench it out of his hand and take it with her. So that’s what she did.

“Hey,” said Tom. “You want that? Hey! What are you doing?” His doggedness reasserted itself, following her faithfully to the register.

“$19.95,” said the man behind the counter. “You want a bag for that?”

“No bag,” she shook her head and stuck it in her pocket. Taped to the register was a flyer advertising an in-store visit by a porn star Rose had never heard of, with big boobs, blonde hair, inviting eyes. She’d be there that weekend.

Tom followed her out to her car. “What about some other night?” he asked. “We could get a drink some other night if you like.”

Rose looked back at the store. His friend was still inside even if she couldn’t see him. The windows were black, the door was black; everything was black except the name of the store. “I’m leaving town,” she said, sticking her hand in her pocket, and then she got in her car. She would drive all night if she had to, because somewhere, thousands of miles away, there was a man without his penis. When she arrived, returned it to him, he’d be happy to see her, and not just because she’d have his penis in her hands. She’d ask him how his penis came to be hanging in a porn shop thousands of miles away and he’d smile, but he wouldn’t answer. Because it was a mystery, and where there was mystery one could always be sure to find romance.