Gas Station Guy

I'd walked into Ellie's question. Which, thankfully, had a not-too-embarrassing answer. "I don't. Clare had a good few, though."

"Oh, wow!" I glared at Ellie. "Sorry. I guess you'll miss that as well as her, then?"

"Actually, you know what? I think I might miss her toys and her flat but not her... Shame about Mog the cat, though. I liked her, the silly old tabby."

Liz picked up the empty bottle and started tidying up. "Sounds like you know where your money's going, once we get paid!" Gleeful sing-song. I pretended to whack her with my spoon.

I didn't think much about that for the next few weeks, though my cylindrical cheap plastic vibrator got a fair bit of use! I still met up with my friends on Thursdays, and Clare didn't. Fine by me.

One late night, I realised I was out of milk again. So I trotted down to the garage, where the good-looking guy had just turned the lights down and was sweeping the floor. He nodded as I slipped through the door.

Time to treat myself to a magazine, again. The women's ones all seemed to be advertising diets, dresses, and pleasing your man. Diva was diets, dresses, and pleasing your woman. I dumped it back in the rack. I hated January. The men's ones always had better articles, anyway. And hot women. I considered Sky, for the sarcastic advice column and the cute face on the cover with bobbed dark hair, but plumped for a GQ with Sarah Michelle Gellar. I'd been a Buffy fan even before Willow did her 'gay now' thing. In my own head-canon, she'd have kept Tara and welcomed Oz back...

I had a quick rummage through the motoring accessories section -- I could do with a new bike lock -- but didn't pick anything. I queued at the counter behind a large biker paying for his fuel.

"Eh, fit bird, that," he said, pointing at my magazine as he turned to leave.

"Huh? Oh, her. Not really my type..." I didn't want to disagree with this hulking hard man, but nor did I want to suggest I was queer. Bikers generally are fine, but I didn't want to find out the hard way if this particular dude happened to be a homophobic arse.

The guy shrugged and left, saluting the counter chap. "Night."

Gas guy looked at me again in the dim light. "Good read, that." No comment on Buffy.

"Yeah. I read most issues of it. There's often copies knocking about at work." In retrospect, I'd mentioned work to make clear people would be missing me in the morning if anything happened to me.

"Perk of this job, I tell you!"

"Suppose it would be. 'Night!"

"Night, mate."

I started incorporating the petrol station into my weekly routine. Thursday nights out with the girls in central London, stop off on the way home for a mag and a four-pint jug of milk. It meant I didn't need to buy the single-pint cartons from the local newsagent on shivery mornings. The handsome guy was always there, usually purporting to be working on an essay for his accountancy course, but actually browsing a men's magazine on top of his textbook. Hard to say what, as the lights were usually dimmed by the time I got there, and small talk never got much further than the weather or what he was doing at college.

One week I grabbed a copy of Men's Health, because it promised a snarky review of the new Bond film, and I'm not averse to scantily-clad men.

"Hey, snap, mate!" Counter guy raised the copy he was reading, as he rang me up.

"Good taste, mate," I grinned as I tossed him a fiver and let him put the tuppence change in the charity tin, so I could get home quicker.

I'd forgotten that Men's Health, like the harder-to-find Playgirl, was almost exclusively purchased by gay men.

Another couple weeks passed. With my pay cheque I coughed up for an imported Hitachi magic wand from a shop near King's Cross. The thing was a revelation -- well worth the living on beans on toast and porridge for the rest of the month -- and going to bed in the cold winter became a real pleasure, lack of partner notwithstanding.

The week after, I picked up milk and a copy of GQ from the garage.

The following week, milk, Sky magazine -- the 'Guys! Secrets women will never tell you!' article promised much hilarity -- and I was in time to get some wine at the normal price. It had been one of those weeks, at work.

The week after that brought another Thursday, in another pub basement in the City. Still overworked and underpaid.

"So, anyone new on the horizon, Rach?"

"I wish! Only dyke at work has her wife, my department is all happily married except for this bitch of a homophobic whinging Brummie -- she screeches all the time, it's horrible -- and the only other women I've been meeting at all are you lot."

Jen considered this, and let her eyes wander meaningfully to Bex, one of our oldest friends. Who was, admittedly, both gay and single. And I wasn't objecting to her distinctive looks: spiky hair, piercings, and body-builder shoulders making her tits look even bigger...

I grimaced at Jen. "I can't go there."

"I know. Maybe in a few years she'll be better." What we weren't saying was that sadly, Bex and mental health didn't really go on the same page, and she'd been sectioned again last month, probably after another suicide attempt. I couldn't open my heart to that level of probable hurt. I had, actually, offered her a shag a couple years earlier, which I was fairly sure Jen didn't know, but Bex had turned me down. Relationship or nothing.

"Ah, well. I guess I'll just have to keep Mr Duracell in business."

"And the leccy company. Hope your housemates don't ask you to pay a higher share of the electric bill to cover that magic wand you bought!"

I pretended to slap Jen. I didn't want to think about Ellie and Liz thinking about my masturbation habits.

"OK! You need to meet more women. Look, I'm starved -- how about coming with me round the corner to Out for Lunch?"

I accompanied her to one of the city's few queer cafés, which offered decent cheap food, loads of flyers advertising every gay event going, and a basement bar. Also, I was reminded as we entered, a rotation of young, cute, and blatantly queer staff behind the counter. The clientele generally were friendly, all gay-friendly if not queer themselves, and some should be attractive to look at.

Jen knew what was good for me. Earlier that day I'd been considering swearing off women forever; after ordering the day's special from a petite lass with blue hair and a simpering look, squeezing down the stairs past a buxom Glaswegian who amused herself by thrusting her breasts into my face way more than actually necessary, and ending up sharing a table with a lovely couple who were sharing their first anniversary, one girl pixie-like and cheeky, the other reminding me of Buttercup from the Princess Bride -- I decided that I'd let the female half of humanity off. There must be another good queer woman available, somewhere.

Which was a bit of a relief. Thing is, I'd actually quite enjoyed the sex I'd had with men, before I'd managed to find some obliging women. Nothing wrong with it, or them, even. Just, it was enjoyable like a nice cup of tea or a bowl of ice-cream is enjoyable. A perfectly pleasant way to pass the time.

But lusting after a woman and then finally getting her into bed -- because the one drawback of women is the time it takes between those, though that might just be me doing it wrong -- now, that's like a slap of sensation, champagne, oysters of course, a tropical rainstorm, hail, electrocution... all at once.

So, really, nothing wrong with men. And for a quick scratch of an itch, they win hands down. Some time I should be brave enough to try the 'Get your coat. You've pulled.' line on a woman. But women... Women are just wonderful. Except for the ones where their personality ruins it. Though really, the personality problem applies to even more men. So many, many more...

I stuck to my hard, leather-jacketed, booted persona when travelling round London, not just because I'd seen Donna McPhail and Rhona Cameron at an impressionable age and loved the look, but also to ward off those blokes. The ones who try to chat up young women on every single journey, and don't take any notice of 'not interested' body language.

You think I'm exaggerating? From the age of around fourteen, until twenty-one, if I got on a train that was spacious enough to find a seat, I could guarantee over eight out of ten trips would include a sleazy guy. Maybe a pleasant guy on one in ten, but they were usually trapped behind the pick-up artists and entitled arseholes.

'Why won't you tell me your name?'

'Why won't you come home with me?'

'Will you marry me? Why not? Bitch.'

'Why are you a stuck-up bitch reading a book?' instead of entertaining a bloke I'd never met?

'Are you a dyke? You're a fucking dyke!' because I wouldn't suck off a bloke who'd said hello two minutes earlier.

'I want your holes. All of them,' as soon as we got off the train.

Or the casual attempts at groping, telling me they could rape me any time, their family could kidnap me for them... It's a bloody miracle I hadn't written off men completely, really.

It was worst when I was a teenager, but back then I was rarely alone. Commuting alone as a student, an hour each way on the Underground, was simply a swarm of harassment -- making a journey to college feel like swimming upstream against a macho tide. As soon as I mastered looking tough, or simply making my default response "fuck off," the hassle from men started to fall away. Nowadays, at nearly twenty-three, it usually happened only if I let exhaustion or illness show - the worst part of getting flu the previous year had been the sudden influx of men in my personal space on the Tube. Or if it was late at night.

Because it's a truth men universally acknowledge, that a woman alone near midnight must be in want of a penis...

After a couple strong happy-hour cocktails, I ranted along these lines to Jen. She understood the problem well. Better, probably -- she had bigger tits than me! It was a shame we'd known each other since we were ten and were like sisters, putting her off-limits to any thought of a shag, (except that once, years ago). Her partner Chris was great and I'd never try to get between them.

"Course, you did actually say you wanted a cock, Rach."

"You what?" The triple-shot cocktail must have gone to my head.

"Seeing as you don't have access to Clare's toys any more, remember? Or that huge bed and hotel-quality bedding you were always on about? You said, you were going to buy your own dick once you got paid. It's the last Friday tomorrow; that's close enough for the credit card, right?"

"It's practically ten o'clock! Where's going to sell me a dildo at this time of night?" As I said it, it dawned on me that given the hours kept by sex shops, a dildo was probably easier to find than many things I might want to purchase. Like that textbook I kept meaning to buy for work. "OK, Soho, but that's a right trek."

"There's that new huge store right by Tottenham Court Road station. Harmony."

I'd seen the adverts. Three floors of sexual accessories, designed to welcome women in like other department stores did, rather than put them off in the manner of a dodgy sex shop. And open until midnight.

"Four stops. Still on the Northern line for you. Come on, girl, let's get you ready for when a hot babe begs you to fuck her! Can't have you missing your chance!"

I knew it was hopeless to argue against Jen's enthusiasm. Not that I tried. I knocked back the last of my drink and squeezed back up the stairs behind her, my mind suddenly wondering what it might be like to apply a strap-on to some of the tarted-up talent coming into the basement, all planning to enjoy dancing when the DJ started up.

There's nothing like the Central Line to return you to sober. We emerged into the chilly March evening and hastily oriented ourselves onto Charing Cross Road. We couldn't miss the place -- huge neon signs illuminated behind floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows. Like a large Ann Summers in triplicate, only better quality, so I'd heard.

We went in, appreciating the warmth but not the ridiculous novelty games, cheap blindfolds nor chocolate penis moulds on the ground floor. The next level was full of videos and DVDs, and could pass for Virgin Megastore if it weren't for the large number of men looking shifty in their long coats and being asked to move on by the nearly-as-large number of bulky bouncers. Lots of giggling couples, though I guessed the male-male ones would be the best customers. Or some of the single men, the ones not being thrown out for sullying the packaging.

Jen stopped me flipping through the magazine section -- not that I wanted to expose my kinks even to her -- and made me climb the stairs to the top floor. If you wanted a dildo, this was clearly the place to be.

Or if you were looking for bondage gear, or seriously fetishistic waitress or maid outfits, or fake police uniforms, or functional handcuffs, or nipple clamps, or butt plugs in a huge range of colours and sizes and materials, as well as more dildos than I'd ever seen in my life; fake cocks in various materials, some with realistic veins on, some with reassuring smiley faces, some doubling up as pieces of art, in every colour and pattern imaginable. And some I'd prefer not to imagine -- certain politicians' likenesses had been applied to some dildos, and I really didn't want to think about the fantasies of the people who bought them. Even lacking any kind feelings towards Margaret Thatcher or George Bush at all.

"Let's start with a harness," Jen said. "You've not got one, right?"

"I've got rope. I know how to make a harness with it," I replied defensively, wincing at the prices.

"Yeah, but you don't want to be needing to do that when you're in a hurry, do you? It'd dead spoil the moment, trust me on that one."

She had a point.

"You don't need real leather, though. Rubber's cheaper. Or there's fake leather, but I wouldn't, if you're wanting it to last... Or hold up to anything vigorous..."

"Sounds like you've learnt from painful experience!"

"It wasn't painful... Just annoying." She mimed a structural failure. "Sproinnnngggg...."

I giggled, and picked up a thick rubber set of straps. It was heavier than I expected.

"I don't think you need anything that robust! We're not looking at the bear market, right? But you do want two rings. Believe me on that. Oh, use your brain! One in, one out..."

I got it. I had fond memories of being on the pointy end of such things, literally. It usually hadn't been me wearing the cock, but now, cute female assistant hoping to measure me up, I figured that was a skill I wanted as part of my repertoire.

The cost of the dildos was less than I'd feared. I insisted on silicone, endured the lecture on appropriate lube and cleaning choices, considered buying two -- perhaps a slimmer one, as well as a good-size one I couldn't quite stretch thumb and forefinger round? The girl kneeling in front of me would look adorable kissing my cock, or bent over to receive it doggy-style, but sadly she'd pointedly mentioned her possibly non-existent boyfriend within two sentences, so I was on my best behaviour.

I decided one cock should be plenty -- should my hypothetical girlfriend want something different, we could go shopping together -- and one small vibrator to attach for my own pleasure. I splashed out on a large silicone phallus, marbled purple and black, with a subtle face design near the tip. Beautiful, eternally firm, and always erect. How a dyke does dick.

Jen and the assistant helped me get the buckles to exactly the right place for use, over my knickers, and showed me how to pop my new vibe into the pouch inside for when I wanted to test the thing in earnest. The assistant left me in Jen's good hands, and we added the cock.

The effect startled me. I'd never got to see myself with a dick before, so really now I had to strut in front of the floor-length mirror, admiring my erect cock, rubbing it up and down, feeling the effect as the front of the harness moved against my crotch. Oh yeah, I liked this. Like men loved theirs.

My jeans were round my knees. For amusement, I tried to pull them up over my new penis. It was a bit tight for comfort, but I could do up the zip, if I wanted to go out packing. A different pair would contain it easily. I wondered if I might become one of those confident strap-on-wearing women at the Ace of Scrubs, though they all tended to be very butch and, I have to confess, slightly scary. It only takes a couple lesbians, invariably stocky butch ones, to tell you you don't look like you're one of them, to destroy your confidence as a teenager.

Let's face it, anything can destroy the fragile fledgling confidence of a teenager! I was very glad Jen had been there to steer me to a more welcoming, varied, queer community when I'd moved to London, where my lack of performed femme-ness didn't exclude me from hanging out with those with long hair and curves, and my practical, possibly butch personality was accepted by a bunch of lovely bull-dykes and goths who merely took the piss for my ponytail and for my colourful clothes, respectively.

I did a little twirl for the mirror, then unzipped my fly again and enjoyed how the -- my -- cock jutted out, ready to play. I could see why men were so obsessed with their dicks. They were fun. They felt good. It's not that I don't like cock, just there's so much rest of a body to explore and enjoy...

"Come on, Rach. Oi, Rachel! Take that off so you can pay for it!"

Oh, yeah. Not mine, yet. I wondered if it was, technically, the property of MasterCard until I paid off the bill next month.

Jen helped unfasten the minimum of buckles, and inserted the vibrating clit stimulator. "There! All ready to go -- just a leg through each of those, pull there and there, and Bob's your orgasmic partner..."

Paid for, the plain plastic bag shoved in the small rucksack I used in lieu of a handbag, I gave Jen a hug. "I have no idea when I'll get to use this, but, thanks for getting me thinking about it again!"

"Ah, you're finally over her, then? Thank god. You've been right mopey..."

"Really?"

"Well, quite mopey... Glad to see you've come out of it. Open your eyes and enjoy the eye candy!" She lowered her face to my ear, conspiratorially. "Now if I were single, I'd go chat up her there. And her. And her..."

I looked around, and even though I didn't feel like doing anything about the ambulant talent right then, she'd got me into a good mood, feeling positive about the prospect of doing some more hot women of the world some time. I put my arm round her as we left the store, so I could do a big hug goodbye outside the Tube.

My happiness was immediately smashed by two drunk lads rolling up to us, trying to put their arms round us, and shouting "Phwoar! It's a pair of les-bee-unns!"

I mean, seriously?

"Go on! Giz a kiss!"

"Snog! Snog! Snog!"

"Oh, fuck off!" Jen yelled and twisted the left bloke's arm back off hers. I tried to do the same, but the guy on my side was stronger.

"Get the fuck off me!" I screamed as loud as I could. The crowd on the pavement just continued to ooze past us. Thankfully, one of the bouncers outside the shop walked over.

Just as he was starting to query, "Everything all right here, madam?", the guys dropped us and shrugged.

"Eh, just being friendly."

The fuck they were.

Jen and I waited until the tossers were out of sight, before proceeding to the station again. At least the post-theatre crowds were generally polite and would obstruct any men trying it on again. I'd never been hassled when out with Jen, before, but it had happened a few times with Clare; a gang of guys swarming round and forcing us to kiss, an older man treading on her feet so she stumbled and he could try smooching our lips together, the chap who'd seen us snogging in a back street and pushed his way between us to try to force his lips onto mine. Screw men. Women were clearly the way to go.