Err on the Side of Violence: Terribly Acronymed Detective Club Series (Book 3)

Part One: What Happened That Night; Chapter One: Rachel, Thursday

"So, what would you think if I got one of these?" Rachel asked Lauren as the two of them strolled the aisles of the adult entertainment store. She gestured with her hands in a flourish, as if she were a showroom model. 

Her best friend and lover eyed the item in question and smirked. "No. Definitely not." Japanese on her father's side and English on her mother's, she was elfin in quality but had a solidity and strength Rachel enjoyed when they were in bed together, and being in this sex shop with her was giving her ideas.

"Oh, come on, I've always wanted to try one on and see how it felt to use it. I can make it a birthday gift to myself." Her birthday was coming up, but she'd already celebrated it officially with Lauren, Al, Joe, Sunny, Tej and their families last weekend. Al, Rachel's husband, had gotten her a lovely gift, but he hadn't visited a store like this to get it.

Lauren turned to her and raised her eyebrows. "You just want to make Al extraneous, as if all I ever saw him as was a phallus on legs."

That was exactly what Rachel was thinking, but she couldn't admit that to her best friend, who, to Rachel's discomfort, was enjoying Al's attention a little too much these days. "It's not that," she lied. "When I'm with you I sometimes want to be butch, and this little number would let me feel, at least a little, what it's like to be Al, or, actually, maybe Joe, given the size of this thing."

Joe was Lauren's husband and the number one man in her life. His family came from Northern Italy, and Italians from that region tended to be larger than their southern cousins, but Joe must have had some Celt or Visigoth warlord among his ancestors, because he'd become massive in high school playing football and lifting weights. His extremities, all of them, had grown in proportion to his frame, and Lauren benefited greatly from the bigger being better maxim.

Lauren gave the strap-on more serious appraisal. "You want to basically be the man with me? Is that what you're saying?"

"And you can be with me, of course." She stroked Lauren's hairline, and Lauren shivered when her fingers grazed her neck. Rachel leaned in and whispered, "I'd love to have you on top, pounding me with that thing."

"Rachel," Lauren cooed. "Jesus." Her skin flushed, and she looked around to see if anyone was paying attention to them. The dude at the end of the aisle was giving them the eye, but Rachel stared at him so long that he looked away and left the aisle.

"I have two concerns with this thing," Lauren said after thinking about it for a while. "One, I've never really been into toys, and I think this thing would hurt going in. What I love about us, Rachel, is that we're ourselves with each other, and we're not pretending to be anyone else, and that," she said, gesturing to the dildo on a belt, "is the ultimate pretence. I don't want you as a man, Rachel, does that make sense?"

Rachel sighed in resignation. Lauren was usually up for anything, and this prudishness was disappointing. "Yeah, I get it, I guess."

"Two, you need to consider the consequences of having that in your place."

Rachel blinked in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"Would you like that to be discovered by your two wards?"

"What, you think they would?"

Lauren chuckled. "Babe, kids can find anything. No place is off limits to them. It would be embarrassing enough if they were younger, and they suddenly brandished it in front of a room full of adults, pretending to be a unicorn by strapping it under their chin. But you have an older teen and a younger teen, who are already self-conscious and negotiating the new world of sex; who knows what they would get up to if they found it?"

"But what if I kept it in my nightstand drawer? They wouldn't look there, would they?"

Lauren snorted with laughter. "That's the first place they look when they're on the hunt for valuables. Tell me you have your wallet, phone and keys with you at all waking hours."