Neena Thurman pours drinks, kicks ass. (fallsinplace) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-07-27 15:26:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, anya corazon (spider-girl), neena thurman (domino) |
Who: Cora Mallory and Neena Thurman
Where: Cora's house, then an adult novelty shop
What: shopping for a visual aide
When: recently
Warnings/Rating: frank discussion of many aspects of sexuality, but no actual sex
Status complete
Neena felt a little (ok a lot), sketchy as she approached Elaine’s door. She’d mostly been joking during her conversation about this with Nate, but the more she thought about it, the more it sounded like fun and like something that Cora might actually need to prepare for the near certainty of sex with Nate.
She knocked and hoped that Elaine was too busy to answer the door. This would be extra weird if it was preceded by a talk with her future sister in law.
Elaine was working, and Cora was upstairs reading, so it was Cora who answered the door. “Hi, Neena!” she said brightly, gesturing for her soon to be aunt to come inside. “Are you here to see mom?” Neena had never come in for a massage before, but there was a first time for everything.
Little did she know this visit was about an entirely different sort of first time.
Neena smiled as she stepped in. Cora was just too cute. She felt a little bad about what they would be discussing next. “Actually, I’m here to talk to you, Cora. You have some time?”
“Sure,” Cora said, wandering back toward the living room. She was curious what Neena might want to talk to her about, unless it was to plot some kind of surprise for Uncle Thomas. Then again, she’d probably just ask Harry for that. “Do you want some lavender lemonade? It’s fresh squeezed.”
“Actually I’m planning on kidnapping you for a shopping trip.” That was an okay place to start. Neena had no idea how to broach this subject without sounding creepy or freaking Cora out.
“Oh! Okay, cool.” Cora smiled. That was an unexpected surprise. “Let me just leave mom a note, and then I’ll get my wallet!” She grabbed the note pad from the fridge, and jotted down a quick message. A moment later, she was all ready to go.
Neena couldn’t help but laugh. “Maybe you should ask where we’re going before getting into a car with strange women.” She wanted to ruffle Cora’s hair. No wonder Nate liked her so much. She was adorable.
“You’re not a stranger,” Cora said, “You’re marrying my uncle.” Whom she’d only known for a few months, it was true. She’d only recently met her biological father, for that matter. But she was a little bit curious, and she was still young enough at heart to blurt out questions. “Where are we going?”
Neena chuckled. She was glad, in a way, that Cora had asked. “Long story short, I’m taking you to an adult store to help you pick out a couple new toys. There’s a good reason.” She didn’t want poor Cora to be surprised when she found herself in an intimate situation with Nate.
For a moment, Cora’s mind glossed over the ‘adult’ part, and only registered the ‘toys.’ Her mom had made a nostalgic post about her getting rid of all the ones she’d recently outgrown. But after a second, something clicked, and her cheeks turned bright red, and she felt the a strange urge to retreat into her exoskeleton. She managed to resist the instinct, but her face still flamed, and she sputtered, “But...I don’t need...I don’t even like using tampons.”
She had no idea that real men could actually be as well endowed as pornographic fan-art made them out to be.
“So you have no intention of ever fucking Nate?” She asked, with a small laugh. “Six foot eleven inch tall, size fourteen shoe, enormous as hell Nate Summers?” She hoped she could paint Cora a picture without outright saying ‘Nate’s penis will ruin your vagina’.
Cora’s face just kept getting redder as Neena’s hints led her imagination to wander. She was suddenly all too acutely aware of just how and why Neena would know so much about the size of Nate’s penis. Not that she hadn’t known before, but it was easier to pretend she didn’t when Neena wasn’t trying to paint her a mental picture.
“I don’t know!” she blurted out, covering her face and peering out between her fingers. “It’s not like we can even date right now, never mind...that. We barely even got to kissing. And now I’m picturing you and Nate in the future and...oh, god.” She flailed, and flopped on the couch, and covered her eyes again. “I just can’t!”
Oops. Neena felt really bad, now. “Okay, that’s fine. You don’t have to do anything, that’s why I told you what this was about before we left.” She wasn’t sure what she should do, exactly. Hugging Cora probably wasn’t the answer. “You won’t be underage for very much longer, and I’m just worried that you won’t be prepared for whatever happens when things do get to that point. Nate’s a good man, and very gentle, but he’s only human and the better you can prepare yourself the more you’ll enjoy it.”
Cora sighed, and let her hands drop to the couch beside her, trying to take a deep breath and not be so embarrassed and defensive. If Nate was as big as her runaway imagination was trying to convince her, she couldn’t see how they were ever going to get physical, even if she did turn eighteen in two years (or less, if the universe hit fast-forward on her again, like it did to Nate).
“Even his hands are huge now,” she said, sounding rather daunted by the...large...indomitable task that Neena had proposed. “If...if his...penis...” the word came out very small, as if whispering it might somehow make it seem less insurmountable. “Matches the rest of him, it’s probably bigger than my arm!” She held up her forearm, and eyed it like it was a strange, alien thing. “It’ll be like giving birth every time--”
And she had to stop there, because she really didn’t want to think about giving birth, either!
Neena laughed. “It’s not that big, and birth is way worse, let me tell you.” She sat down next to Cora. “You’ve seen porn, right? He’s comparable to some of the larger stars in those movies.” She wondered, for a moment, if Cora had accidentally run into Thomas’s movie. After consideration she decided she wouldn’t ask and would try not to think about it, for Cora’s sake.
“I’m nine,” Cora said, “Where would I see porn--that isn’t drawn by horny fans of yaoi manga,” she added hastily, because you couldn’t tumblr without accidentally running into something that made your eyeballs pop out of your head. But she’d never seen an adult movie. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to. “I was only allowed to watch PG13 if mom had seen it first, or she was watching with me. “The penises in textbooks are only like, this big.”
She measures a few inches between her thumb and forefinger. “I know that doesn’t count, because they grow, but. Where’s it suppose to go? I have...organs and stuff up in here. Maybe I just won’t have sex. Ever.”
Neena snickered. “Your organs will be fine, and you’ll rethink that pretty quick the next time you’re around Nate, I bet.” She really wanted to ruffle Cora’s hair, now. “It probably won’t all fit inside you, at least not. . . uh, in your vagina.” She was blushing just a little bit now, which was a huge feat, all things considered.
“I don’t want to think about it, but now I’m not even going to be able to look at him without thinking about it,” Cora said, running her fingers through her own hair. She hadn’t really been thinking about it yet except in abstract terms, and now she was sure that even if she should change her mind in some moment of hormonal insanity, it wouldn’t work anywhere he tried to put it, and Nate would change his mind about wanting to be with her in favor of someone less breakable.
She sucked in a deep breath, and tried to let it out slowly. “Why does life have to be so complicated?”
Neena hugged her. That seemed like the right thing to do. “Because life is a bitch. But you’ll be okay having sex with him. I promise that it stretches more than you think, and that’s why we’re going to the toy store. If you get something to help your body adjust to such big sizes it’ll be easier with him the first time. This one thing, at least, you can prepare for.”
Cora hugged her, blinking just a little too fast as she swallowed the lump in her throat. Romance was exciting, but sex just made her nervous. But even if they went shopping, even if she decided to use the things, that didn’t mean it had to happen right away. She had two whole years to prepare for it, or longer, if she needed. Nate would wait for her. Right?
“Does it hurt a lot?”
Neena shook her head. “My first time was a little uncomfortable. Milo was very gentle with me, but there’s a big difference between what I could do on my own and what he could do with me. I was a little sore the next day, but after that it got to be really fun. Honestly I don’t know how I survived for seven years without it. I can say that having the right person makes all the difference, and that I know Nate cares about you a lot.”
Cora chewed her bottom lip, trying not to think too hard. “I’ve never...you know. Done anything by myself. I don’t even know if I’ll like it.” Being a woman was weird, and messy, and she was still just getting used to that, and the mood swings that seemed to come with it.
Neena thought about that for a little bit. “Well, I don’t want to tell you what to do, but that’s actually kind of an important step, sexuality wise. You don’t have to do it, but you should explore your sexuality on your own before you get other people involved.”
“Well...it wasn’t my idea to involve you!” Cora protested, but she was laughing now. She couldn’t help it. She’d crammed years of aging into one night, and she was slowly catching up to it through her dreams, and her experiences, but she still felt like she was caught in some weird limbo. “I didn’t order Nate to wait for me, or anything, either, he said he wanted to. So what’s the big rush? Are you worried I’ll age up again and be super horny, or something?”
“I married Milo when I was 19 basically because I just wanted to have sex. I’m not really trying to rush you, because I think grown ass men shouldn’t sleep with girls a lot younger than them. I’m just offering to give you the tools to make any eventual whatever you might do with him or anyone else as comfortable as possible.”
Cora nodded. She was still nervous and embarrassed, but she felt a little less likely to retreat into her shell and cry at a moment’s notice. She didn’t want it to hurt, or for Nate to worry about hurting or frightening her, either. She just didn’t really ‘get’ the whole sex drive thing yet. “I guess it’s not a bad idea. I’m just...getting to know my body all over again and it kinda freaks me out. Boobs, hips, pimples, periods. High school? I don’t know how to relate to my peers because I’m not even sure who my peers are, except Nate. And he’s...”
She sighed. Nate was always so sweet to her, and she adored him. But she knew he felt just as out of place as she did, even with his full-grown body. “Well, I guess I don’t have to tell you about Nate. I just don’t understand teenagers at all.”
“Nobody understands teenagers. When I was your age I was so mixed up and pissed off I left home, changed my name, got a job at IHOP and stopped going to school. Being mixed up and awkward about everything is pretty much how being a teenager goes.” She patted Cora’s hair softly. “But you’re smart, capable, and loyal. You’ve got a good family, and lots of people who’re willing to help you out. You can figure all this out in your own time, and you’ll be able to handle it all.”
“Even shopping for...sex toys?” Cora asked, scrunching up her face into a dubious grimace. “I better get a hoodie, in case I get embarrassed and my defense mechanisms kick in. I don’t want to wind up on the cover of some alien conspiracy tabloid, or something. Bug Girl Likes Cock!”
“It’s better than buying them online.” Neena said with a laugh. “And nobody will get a picture of you. It’ll all be very tasteful.” She handed Cora a driver’s license which said she was 18. “Put that in your wallet, and hand it over at the shop if they ask.”
Cora stared at the ID for a moment--a real, fake ID, omg--and then pulled her wallet from the pocket of her cargo shorts, and stuffed it inside. Then she stuffed the wallet back in her shorts. Only 18, she couldn’t get into too much trouble, right? That’s what she was going to keep telling herself. “Okay. Now what?”
“Grab your hoodie and try not to giggle anytime you see the word ‘dong’, because I’ll crack up and we’ll both be embarrassed later.” She grinned at Cora and headed for the door.
Cora giggled, hoping she could get it out of her system now, before they actually started looking at rubber dongs. She ran back to the bedroom, and pulled on a hooded sweatshirt, then skipped after Neena. This was going to be so weird.
Neena held the door for Cora and headed toward the truck. When they were both inside she started off toward downtown Irvine, hoping things wouldn’t be too weird.
Cora hopped in, and put on her seatbelt, settling back for the ride. “So...besides worrying about me and Nate...how are things?”
“Pretty good. Quiet.” The way Neena said it, quiet wasn’t necessarily a good thing. “I can’t wait until the bar is open again, I’m going crazy sitting at home.” She laughed a little at herself. Being idle never really sat well with her, even before the dreams. “How about you? I know suddenly being a teenager is rough, is everything going okay with that?”
Cora snorted under her breath and stared out the window for a moment. “It’s okay, as long as I don’t think about PMS, and stuff,” she said, “I took some high school placement tests, and Billy said I’m at tenth grade level. Billy was tutoring me in math, when I was little, and he goes to Creekside, where I’m probably going to go in the fall. He’ll be graduating in a year, but at least I’ll know someone when I start.”
“It gets easier, but you basically should think of your uterus like little tiny internet troll who’ll do anything to ruin your day.” Neena was joking, but not entirely. She couldn’t take a vacation, no matter how well planned, without hitting her period at some point during it. “The only time it’s even remotely not a problem is at the start of pregnancy, unless you’re one of those unlucky girls that gets really sick.” She turned to smile at Cora during a red light. “I’m sure you’ll do fine, you’re a smart girl.”
Cora smiled back, and blushed some more, but not as bad as before. “I guess I better think about having mom take me back to Doctor Magius for a prescription, because I’m betting they don’t make horse-cock sized condoms, and I’m so not ready to get pregnant any time soon.” Even if she did change her mind about so not having sex, like, ever. “Mom drinks catnip when she gets her period. Mister, the cat, always tries to get a taste of it.”
Neena snerked. “I don’t actually know if they make condoms big enough.” She’d heard the catnip tea thing, but never tried it. “Mister’s a weird name for a cat.”
"Harry named him in he dreams, because he acted like he man of the house after Harry rescued him from a dumpster," Cora explained. She liked retelling the stories her dad would share with her from his dreams. "Like we're all just big kittens. Even Mouse, and he's big enough not to look small next to Nate!"
Neena snickered. “Mouse is a really big dog. I still think he’s part Clydesdale.” Talking about Cora’s various animals was amusing, and obviously putting the girl at ease again. That was good, Neena didn’t want her freaking out the whole time.
As long as she didn’t think too long and hard--ahem--about Nate’s penis, where it had been, and where it was supposed to go, Cora thought she would be okay. “Maybe he’s hiding hooves under all that fur,” she said, continuing the conversation about Mouse. “I guess he’s descended from some kind of Spirit Dog, but who knows what else got mixed in?”
“So you don’t really have normal animals, huh?” Neena said with a laugh. “I guess Dante is going to feel pretty inadequate if he ever runs into Mouse.” She loved Dante, but compared to Harry’s spirit dog mini-horse he just wasn’t intimidating.
“Nope. Well, unless Mister really is just a normal Maine Coon, but Harry doesn’t even know for sure.” Dream Harry didn’t know, so her dad didn’t know. And she supposed it wasn’t what you’d call normal to adopt, or be adopted by animals from one’s dreams. “But maybe Dante’s old enough to know ‘size matters not.’”
Except, apparently, when it did.
Neena laughed. “Dante’s not that smart, but I’m not sure he cares.” She knew her dog would protect her from anything and anyone, and that was what mattered most. “I’m kind of glad Thomas doesn’t have any weird dream animals.”
“I always wanted a pet,” Cora said, “Now I have two.” She was pretty happy about that. “I kind of wish I could have seen Mouse as a puppy, but at least mom won’t have to worry about house-training him.”
“I remember doing that with Dante.” Neena noted with a laugh as she pulled into the parking lot of the sex shop. “I was pretty happy we could afford a maid at the time.”
“You had a maid?” Cora’s eyes widened slightly. “Fancy.” She used to imagine living in a mansion, or a castle. Sometimes she was the princess, sometimes she was the maid. Right now, she mostly enjoyed being herself.
Neena shrugged. “Yeah, It was just me and her a lot at the end.” She slid out of the truck, and went around to get the door for Cora.
Cora hopped out, and waited on the sidewalk for Neena to lock the vehicle. She'd let Neena lead the way into the store, since she was sure she'd look silly if she marched in there all alone. She'd just try and think of it like when she'd helped out with the mission on Graymalkin.
Neena led the way into the shop, holding the door for Cora so she could gape as much as she liked at first. The person behind the counter asked for Cora’s ID, and Neena nudged her a little bit to make sure she got the right one.
Cora had left the new ID poking out the top of the billfold section, so it would be easy to find. She didn’t drive yet, so it was really the only ID she had, other than a library card. She smiled as she handed it over, her stage presence coming instinctively into play--though she had butterflies on the inside. Giant butterflies.
The clerk looked at it, and then at Neena, then shrugged. Neena smiled and led Cora back past the trashy lingerie and the DVD section, to the toy aisles. “Don’t make eye contact with anyone, it’s not worth it.” She knew that from experience. Instead of making a bee line for the toys she thought would serve Cora best, she decided to let the girl wander and look around, so she would be a little more comfortable.
Cora stuffed the ID--and her hands--into the pocket of her hoodie, and wandered after Neena. Now that they were there, she had a feeling it would be hard enough to make eye contact with Neena, never mind anyone else. Ticklers, floggers, vibrating everything...she didn’t want to know how red her face must be. She didn’t even know where to look! Her eyes just kept darting from place to place.
Neena chuckled a little, and began looking at some of the vibrating toys. She enjoyed her time alone, even if she did get plenty of attention from Thomas. “Let me know when you’re done being embarrassed, I don’t want to make it worse.”
“I think it’s only going to get worse before it gets better,” Cora said, trying to keep the squeak out of her voice, and succeeding...somewhat. She was holding the edge of her hood in case of emergency, and was staring at some battery operated contraption with wires that appeared to attach to a pair of nipple clamps and something lower down in a Y shaped trifecta. But it just made Cora go, “Whyyy?”
Neena saw what she was looking at and laughed a little. “Not everything is going to make sense right now,” She gently took Cora’s hand and led her to the relative safety of the section with attachments for a Hitachi magic wand. “I don’t want to ruin all your exploration.”
Cora let her hood fall back around her shoulders and took a deep breath. She was glad she had stopped sucking her thumb a long time ago, or she might be chewing her nails right now. Exploring was supposed to be fun, but it kind of felt like homework right now.
“Is it bad that the first thing that catches my eye is the purple butterfly...” She gestured vaguely to indicate that she understood it was meant to strap around one’s waist and thighs in the general pelvic region. “...thing?” Purple. Butterflies. Nah, she wasn’t giving away her age at all.
Neena laughed a little. “It’s cute. There’s nothing wrong with that.” She pulled the toy off the shelf. “Does this have a wireless remote? The wires get shorts all the time, it’s a pain in the ass.”
Cora got brave, and peeked at the back of the package when Neena took it down. “Hm. It looks like it has a wire. Unless they make a cordless version?” Her eyes darted to the shelves, and then back to the package in Neena’s hands. “I guess we can keep looking.”
“Well, it’s not like it’s too expensive, and buying something you’re not scared of will probably help. Do you want it?” She offered the package to Cora, hoping its cuteness and the fact that it was fairly non-threatening would interest her.
“Okay,” Cora said, with a sheepishly lopsided little smile. She took the box, and turned it over in her hands, glancing at the blurb about ‘ten sensational settings.’ That raised her eyebrows a hair, but she supposed she would find out more later. What she appreciated most was the fact that it seemed to be mostly for external stimulation--except for the vibrating antennae, which were so dainty that she didn’t really even flinch at the thought. “It’s a place to start, right?”
“Yeah.” Neena gave her a warm smile, and attempted to covertly grab something for her own use. She figured Cora didn’t want to know what she’d picked out to amuse herself, after all. “Ready to look at the bigger toys?”
Cora wasn’t really paying attention to what Neena was grabbing. She might have been a tiny bit curious, but she was too embarrassed to admit it. Besides, once you know, you can’t un-know (because that would require asking your telepathing boyfriend to erase awkward memories, and...no). She made a face at Neena’s question, but nodded, and drew her hood up just in case--and to heck with looking silly. Might as well get the shock over with.
Neena squeezed her shoulder, then led the way to the selection of larger dildoes. She eyed a few of them, tilting her head a little bit. The only sure way to make sure she got something the right size was going to be frowned on by the person behind the counter, and possible scar Cora for life, but she eventually found one that looked about right. She took a deep breath and handed it over, feeling simultaneously foolish and nervous. She didn’t want to break Nate’s girlfriend and her niece-in-law.
Cora stared at the thing--the ginormous thing--in her hand for a long moment, pointedly glancing from dong to forearm and back at Neena. She could feel her exoskeleton creeping over her body, underneath her clothes. That was going to be interesting if she got scared during sexperimentation.
But more importantly. “How does he not die from lack of blood to the upstairs brain?”
Neena snorted. “What, you think he uses that thing at all?” She grinned at her own joke. “He’s pretty big all around, probably has a lot of blood. I never really thought about it.”
“He’s supposed to be this genius,” Cora parried, “Or is that just in bed?” Yes, she said it. Blue crept across her cheeks like a chitinous blush, but she said it.
Neena laughed. “He’s not bad, I’ll give him that. With his dream memories I’m sure he’ll be even better.” She put her hand out, so Cora could hand the toy back over if she wanted. “But don’t tell him he’s a genius, his ego will get out of control.”
Cora handed the thing back, because there was no way it was getting anywhere near her in her present state of inexperience, nor did she have any idea where she was going to hide something like that until she was ready to use it. If she was ever ready to use it. “It’s not like I’m going to have anything to compare it to.”
Neena nodded. “Yeah. I don’t really have any advice about that. I was pretty happy with Milo, and even after having a few other partners those early years are pretty special to me. I hope you two have fun together. You both deserve something nice after all the crazy.”
Cora sighed. Shoving giant silicone phalluses into her body to prepare herself for sex with a man who was too big to be humanly possible didn’t exactly sound very nice. But neither did spending her first night with him unprepared--at least not from what Neena said. “What if I can’t do it?”
“I think he’ll probably find some cleverly devious way to enjoy his time with you, even if you can’t handle all of that at first. But you’re not even fully grown yourself, yet, and when the time comes I think you’ll see that it’s not as difficult as you thought. You’ll just have to go nice and slow, and prepare for the first time.” Instead of impulsively having sex on a beach. “Don’t have sex on a beach, by the way.”
“Ew, sand,” Cora said, blinking. She’d played on beaches enough to have the experience of sand creeping up inside her swim-suit, it didn’t take much to realize how much worse it would be to get naked on a beach. She eyed the racks again, and bit her lip to stop from giggling at the 12-inch, cherry scented vibro-dong. Cherry scented. “How about I start with something only slightly bigger than a tampon?”
Neena caught what she’d looked at, and couldn’t suppress her own giggle. “I’m sure they’ve got something small enough to be non-threatening.” She perused the shelves, trying to remember what she would be comfortable with at that age. It still surprised her a little how long ago that was. She didn’t feel like she was almost forty. Eventually she found a cute purple one that could sync up with her iPod for some reason or other. “This one sounds like fun.”
Cora looked it over, and nodded. “That seems manageable.” Not that she had more than a theoretical idea what to do with it, even so. But she’d figure it out. Eventually. Probably. And she felt a little better now that they were able to make jokes.
Neena nodded. “So now that we’ve got the serious portion of our trip out of the way you want to giggle over bachelorette party games?” It occurred to her that she’d probably have some kind of bachelorette party. It was a strange thought, she’d never had enough friends to bother with her previous marriages. “Or we could go get a milkshake instead.”
“Or both?” Cora suggested, shrugging her shoulders. The blue mask had receded from her face, so she felt a bit more ready to be seen in public. “I have plenty of time before curfew.”
“Both sounds like a plan to me.” Neena said, giving her a warm smile. “You can giggle at these, I don’t think anyone could look at them with a straight face.”
Cora smiled, then, tucking the butterfly box under her arm. Out of sight, out of mind. For now. “So what sort of games to they have? Are they like...naughty versions of baby shower games? Like, draw a dildo on top of your head?”
Neena chuckled. “Something like that. You know, dildo decorating would actually be pretty fun, as a party game.” She led the way to the novelty section, which had all manner of penis shaped candies, and all the silly adult games she was certain never got played.
Cora giggled at the thought of bedazzled dildos, and dripping penis wax that may or may not smell like cherry pie. Just when she thought she might be able to catch her breath, she saw the phallic crazy-straws, and started giggling again. "There," she joked, between fits, "those are about the right size."
Neena snorted. “I’ll remind you of that when you’re older.” She was pretty sure Cora would change her mind. “It’s nice to know there is always someone more perverted than yourself."
"Who, me?" Cora asked, stifling her giggles for a moment. "I'm not the one whose idea of protecting her neice from the Penisaurus is...well, this."
Neena couldn’t help but laugh at that. It wasn’t a polite little snicker, either. She had to hold on to a rack to keep herself upright. Eventually they tapered off, and she wiped her eyes. “That’s what I’m calling him from now on. And I didn’t actually mean you, kid.”
"I know," Cora said, dissolving in a fit of laughter yet again. "I just couldn't help it." Apparently she'd picked up Harry's wisecracking streak. And apparently, Dresdens didn't do anything small.
Well, Cora certainly wouldn’t, anyway. Neena hugged her shoulders. “I think we’re going to get along just fine, kid. We should get something to prank your dad with."
"Like what?" Cora asked, hugging Neena with her free arm. She glanced over the novelties, snickering at the anatomical cake pans, and wondering if anyone ever used them more than once. She couldn't quite imagine bakin a boob cake to serve after family dinner.
“I don’t know. Maybe an inflatable doll to hide in his closet at work? He has a closet at work, right?” Neena looked thoughtful. The inflatable dolls were in the porn section, and Neena didn’t want to take Cora in there if there were any other people browsing the DVDs.
"Yeah," she said, "I think his office has a closet. And I don't think he's hired a new assistant to embarrass yet." Harry was pretty good about keeping his family informed of changes in the status quo. She didn't know what they'd do with a blow up doll after the prank, but she didn't think she needed to worry about that yet.
That was Harry’s problem, as far as Neena was concerned. She scoped out the DVD section, and was relieved to see it was empty. The toys for men were a little less adorable, but equally fascinating. There were blow up dolls in all shapes and sizes, and Neena began looking them over.
Cora followed timidly behind her, peering at the dolls, and trying not to look at the covers of the DVDs. “Now what?”
“Now we pick one and covertly put it in his office.” Neena tried to look for one that didn’t resemble anyone he knew, because that would just be weird. The Katy Perry knockoff would probably work, she decided. “Unless you want an instructional movie.” Neena joked.
More blushing from the Cora corner, complete with peering out from between the fingers of one hand, to a muffled chorus of, “What? No! I’m not even sure I wanna do it yet, why would I want to watch somebody else? Ew!”
Neena laughed, until her eyes caught the cover of one of the DVDs. She couldn’t stop the surprised expression on her face, but she quickly moved her eyes elsewhere, hoping Cora wouldn’t turn to look at whatever had caught her attention. She hoped Thomas was still getting royalties from that movie. “I think we’re ready for milkshakes.”
Cora glanced over her shoulder, then quickly looked away before she let herself actually focus on anything. Just skin, skin, and more skin, none of it really registered; and she was okay with that. She turned back to Neena with a relieved expression on her face, and nodded. “Comfort food for the win.”