Free Baggage Check by M.J. Pullen

basketball in the intramural gym. Rebecca did not remember now why it had been only she waiting for him after his game—they were headed to some event that had long ago faded in her memory. But she could still feel the bleachers pressing into the back of her thighs as she’d watched him play—wholesome and strong and vigorous. And when he leaned bare chested toward her to throw the soggy shirt into his bag, he had given her a sheepish grin that made his perfect body even more …
    To hell with it . Rebecca stormed over to her suitcase, flung it open, and retrieved the bag. She held it in her hand, weighing it for balance the way she imagined knights had once done with fine swords.
    Why not? she thought again. “Why shouldn’t I have a good time, too?” she said out loud, at her normal speaking volume. “It’s not like they can hear me,” she said a little louder, and waited.
    Apparently they could not, because the sounds of lovers in stereo continued on either side of her walls unabated. She considered the thing in her hand, feeling a little aroused and mostly ridiculous. Did women really use these? She knew girls at work who had funny nicknames for their vibrators, and who had no more shame about them than they did a hair dryer. The one Valerie had bought her, the Goddess 3500X, was a rubbery facsimile of a penis (except translucent and hot pink instead of flesh colored) attached to a base of lavender plastic with several buttons and dials. If she held it upright, it looked like an obscene little statue on a plastic plinth.
    She paused once more to listen, and it was now clear Jake and Marci were doing more than talking. She looked at the Goddess. “It’s either this,” she said, “or go sleep on the beach.”
    Rebecca was not sure what all the buttons and dials did, but she figured out how to make it vibrate, and then discovered that it also spun in wiggly circles on the base, like a short, angry snake trapped in a hot-pink grocery bag. She repressed a giggle, turned off the light, and retreated to the bottom bunk. The buttons glowed! Someone had put thought into engineering this thing. She piled the comforter and every pillow in the room over her midsection to muffle the sound. The extra weight of the covers made it hard to maneuver the rubbery toy under the sheets, but eventually she worked her panties down to her knees and got it into what she assumed was the right position. She turned it on, tentatively trying different buttons and dials until it seemed to be just vibrating.
    At first, she barely touched it to the skin over her pubic bone, feeling totally absurd. She stopped and started a few times, nervous but intrigued. And aroused. It was foreign and strange against her body. After a moment or two, though, the vibrations tingled across her lower body. She began to relax, and then, even more. Soon she had abandoned herself to it, and the idea that someone might overhear and come bursting in only added to the excitement. So this is why all those girls love these things .
    Rebecca slowly began to let her mind wander until it landed on a familiar video montage—there was Jake playing basketball, Jake helping her out of a car somewhere and the way his hand gripped hers just for a moment, Jake tonight on the beach with his hand on her shoulder, and of course, the night four years ago when he had allowed himself to melt beneath her kiss. It had only been a kiss, one tiny moment. She had left his apartment minutes later, dejected and alone.
    But in her imagination, there was so much more. Rebecca had a hundred fantasies with that kiss on Jake’s couch four years ago as a starting point. And they all ended with her wrapped in Jake’s strong, bare arms. Exhausted, happy, and, most of all, safe.
    Tonight, however, Rebecca had barely gotten to the good part when she felt herself begin to climax against the weird little machine. It was intense, maybe too much