Janey popped her head up over the counter long enough to make sure her customers were at least eighteen, as mandated by federal blah blah blah, and they sure appeared to be. A guy and a girl. That was refreshing. Been a long time since she’d seen a hetero couple shop in here together.

Janey tucked the battery box away again and hopped up, slapping her hands on the countertop and trying to look perky and efficient in a we-sell-sex-toys sort of way. “How you folks doing?” she asked brightly. “Hot enough for ya?”

The couple exchanged a ‘look’. The man nodded once, somehow conveying a great depth of irony. “Quite,” he said, demonstrating with one word the kind of reverberating sexy growl of a man’s voice that could get any woman wet. He looked around—at the magazine shelves, the leather masks, the whips and paddles, the board games and inflatable demo-dolls—and he did not look a bit surprised at anything he saw. Not even when he saw the sheep. Clearly, a man who knew his way around a store like Luv-A-Lot’s.

The woman, on the other hand, was doing a pretty good beet impersonation. She, too, took a quick visual inspection of the merchandise, and then said, “I can explain this.” Her eye struck the inflatable sheep. “Most of this.”

“Ha.” It was not laughter, exactly, only a statement of dry humor. “We have porn on my planet, too.”

Or at least, that was sure what Janey thought he said. Maybe he was trying to be funny. Janey had once known a guy from Kansas who introduced himself as coming from another planet, and the big man did have a weird accent.

The women glanced at him, inched a little ways down the novelty aisle, and then came back to the counter. Her hands were wringing, and her face was practically in flames. “Can you tell me where, um, where you keep the, um…”

Janey grinned at her, leaning over the counter. “His or hers?” she asked.

“His,” the woman stammered. “The, um…the not gay…um…”

Janey pointed, and the woman grabbed her fella’s arm and ducked away. There was nothing else to do except watch, but at least Janey had the courtesy to use the mirrors.

The man was a great, broad-shouldered specimen in sunglasses. He had to be at least six and a half feet tall, but he was muscled all over, not lean-looking the way very tall guys tended to be, and not grotesquely pumped like a steroid freak. More like a well-built dude that had been magically blown up to slightly mammoth proportions. He was, in short, the kind of guy that looked like he could give a girl a real rodeo and not shag out after the first five minutes, and he moved in a careful, quiet, completely in-control way that made Janey think ‘cop’, even though he seemed pretty cool about browsing Luv-A-Lot’s.

His date, on the other hand, was completely average in every way, which made her appear positively petite next to her fella, and as always when she was bored, Janey found herself idly picturing the two of them in bed. The girl would have to be on top; either that, or doggie-style. Janey just couldn’t see him going at her missionary without smothering her.

Janey’s reflections were cut short as soon as the man reached the back wall where the His & Her toys were kept. He got one good look at the double-pronged foot-long black dildo on the top shelf, and all his been-here-done-that composure went right out the window. “What the tar?” he said, and that was probably the only time Janey had ever heard that particular exclamation.

“What? Oh.” The woman looked a little nonplussed. “I thought you said you had porn.”

“Yes, but you have people to do this!” The man swept his arm at all the rubber dicks. “Why would you…you…Is that a fish?”

The woman glanced back at the counter, caught her fella’s sleeve, and pulled him over to the Just for Guys section. Soon, they were standing together at the far end of the shelves, conferring in low voices as they looked at the toys. Janey couldn’t make out quite what they were looking at, but his attitude of quiet incredulity was only growing. Janey found that a little surprising; when they’d first walked it, she’d figured the girl for the vanilla, not him.

The girl was explaining something with her hands that could probably be explained better without clothes, standing back so that Janey could finally catch a peek at the merchandise. They were apparently considering a pussy-pump. The Pumpmaster 5000, it looked like, but it was hard to tell from here.

The man asked a question and the girl flipped the box over and read silently, then sent several hesitant glances in the direction of Janey’s back. Janey looked busy and approachable and not at all nosey.

“Um…miss? Hang on, Tagen.” The woman came over to the desk, holding the battery-operated pussy in both hands. “Look, I need a really…um, really good version of this. What can you, uh, recommend?”

“Well, it’s not exactly my thing, you know,” Janey said modestly, trying to put the customer at ease with a little humor.

The lady laughed, but it had a shrill, freaked-out quality that made Janey wonder if the girl was high.

“But okay, assuming sound and money ain’t an object, I’d have to recommend the Jenna Jamason model, which is over there on the wall, top shelf, in the silver box. See it?”

Girl and Guy both looked, and then the fella started over to have a closer look.

“Best suction, tight seal. Pricey as hell, but it ain’t too loud when it’s running. Want to reach it down for me, Highpockets? I’ll demonstrate.”

The man complied, and Janey, who was looking down for the battery box, thought for a second she’d seen something really bizarre about the dude’s hand, but when she straightened up and looked again, his hands were in his pockets and the girl was holding the pump.

Janey popped the seal on the box and fished out the pussy and the cellophane blanks it came packed in, slid in some batteries and unwound the remote cord. “You’re gonna want to use some lube,” she remarked, ducking under again. “We don’t recommend Vaseline, ‘cuz it eats latex, and don’t use any kind of cooking oil, ‘cuz it’ll go rancid and this piece of ass is a bitch to clean. But we have a good stock of flavored, scented, warming, etc, body oils, or you can use good old-fashioned K-Y. Anyway, give the mouth a good spurt and rub it on yourself.”

Janey held out the bottle of cinnamon musk, but it was the girl who took it, and who tentatively poked the pussy lips when Janey offered that, too.

“Feels…pretty normal.” The girl hesitated. “Cold.”

The guy frowned.

“It’ll warm up. Just get her going.” Janey thumbed the remote cord and a soft purring ground out of the device. “Stick your finger in there. Feel.”

Looking squeamish, the girl slipped two fingers into Jenna Jamason. Her face underwent a violent series of convulsions and she burst out into nervous giggles. “Ew!”

“It’s sucking,” Janey translated, for the benefit of the girl’s date, who had stopped looking intrigued in favor of looking alarmed.

“And it’s vibrating,” the girl informed, grinning. “And it is heating up,” she added with a schoolmarm’s nod of approval.

“Come on, play with it a little,” Janey prodded. “There’s no refunds, so you need to know what you’re buying. Work it a little. Feel what it can do.”

The lady was wiping her fingers on her shirt, shaking her head emphatically. “No, no. I think we’re good. We’ll get it.”

“Anything else? Something for you?” Janey winked. “What’s good for the gander is good for the goose.”

The man and woman avoided each other’s eyes. Bizarre.

“No, thanks,” said the lady. “That’s the lube aisle, Tagen. You better get some.”

And Janey, who had just about decided these two were some new breed of devout Catholic who were turning to hardcore masturbation in order to save themselves from the actual sin, got her mind half-blown when the man politely and extremely serenely turned to her and asked, “Do you have anything that is made from a woman’s natural oils?”