Page 26 of Derivation

“Porn?”

“No!” She laughed and turned to Gabi. “Not porn. Just regular movies. I had a bunch of DVDs back then. I’d watch them on my laptop.”

“What else?”

“Well, not strictly a lesbian thing, but I stuffed my vibrators inside some rolled-up socks.”

Gabi laughed and asked, “How many did you have?”

“We’re talking about Amsterdam here, Gabi. There’s a sex shop on every corner. I wanted to try new things.”

“That’s not an answer to my question,” Gabi said, still laughing.

“Five. I had five.”

“You had five vibrators?”

“Is that a lot? I have more than that now.”

“What?”

“I’ve got, like, a dozen now, at least. I still have the five I bought there.”

“On top of the dozen?”

“Including, you ass.” Sarai chuckled.

“Why did you hide them back then?”

“I don’t know. My parents called and asked me to basically watch this kid. And, yeah, you were eighteen, but I didn’t know you were gay when I’d agreed. I thought I should hide that book and the movies because I didn’t want you to go back to your parents, tell them what a horrible influence I was on you, and have it get back to my family.”

“But you said you were out.”

“I was,” she confirmed. “Doesn’t mean they’d want me to corrupt a minor.”

“Sarai, I wasn’t a minor. Hell, I wasn’t even a virgin.”

“I remember you bringing that up, but I hadn’t yet met you when I was hiding all the stuff, and it wasn’t like I was just going to pull it all out right after you got there. Later, you mentioned the girlfriend you’d had, but I didn’t know that when I was running around my room, trying to hide evidence of my gayness and sex toys. You were also pretty shy that weekend. You weren’t sure about going out with my friends, only wanted to talk to me and hang out with me, and seemed a little anxious at times.”

“Ah,” Gabi said and turned away again. “Yeah, well.”

Sarai looked up at her then and said, “Anyway, I didn’t know I’d inspire you to be a big romance reader.”

“Well, what happened to you? You were the one who got me hooked. Why did you stop?”

“I got busy. In school, I read that stuff mostly as a way to decompress, and it was nice, reading about women loving other women and having some happy endings.” Sarai’s eyes went wide at the same time Gabi’s did, and she added, “Not those kinds of happy endings.”

“Oh, I’m sure you liked those kinds of happy endings, too,” Gabi teased.

“I still do,” she replied with a little smirk. “But now, I’m usually too busy trying to keep up with work stuff, and I feel like I still haven’t had my best idea here. I need something to help us really get moving. I just don’t know what, with our limited budget. I feel like I’m letting all of those professors down.”

“Don’t feel bad about that. They’ve had thousands of other students since and have forgotten all about you.”

Sarai looked at Gabi’s face and could tell that she was working hard at trying to hold in her laughter.

“Very funny.”

“I thought so,” Gabi replied and did that thing with her glasses again where she pushed them up her nose. “Should we get back in there before they send a search party?”