Free Scavengers by Rosalyn Wraight

flautas, we hurried on our way. It would be about a twenty-minute drive; dick's castle was outside the city limits and off the main highway.

    Once we pulled into the parking lot, not one car flaunted familiarity. Amazingly, we were the first to arrive. If we were the first to leave, I would be even more impressed.

    The building itself—like an enormous pole barn—boasted a gaudy pink. It looked very odd, stuck with a rural backdrop, and I found myself surprisingly dismayed that it wasn't silo-shaped.

    "Have you ever been in a place like this before?” Claudia asked, and by the tone of her voice, I knew in an instant that she hadn't—never, not ever.

    "When I was in college,” I admitted, “I had a couple of friends—gay guys—who owned a shop. I stopped in to visit them on occasion.” Why did it suddenly feel as though I was knelling in a confessional?

    "Oh,” she said.

    I found it staggering how two little letters—an O and an H—could contain such a tractor-load of judgmental crap. She probably had no clue, but the last place I wanted to walk into was Peter's Palace.

    "Well, I say we just do it,” I encouraged, wanting my cohort fired up and ready to kick butt. “Just get in and get out. We'll worry about talking some hot dame into posing for a photo when we get that far."

    "I suppose,” she said, and then she started rummaging around in the backseat.

    "What are you looking for?” I asked, not sure I even wanted to know after a haz mat suit presented itself in my imagination.

    "This,” she replied, retrieving a baseball cap. She plopped it on her head, her French braid resisting all the way. Then she leaned toward me, and her hand unleashed her sunglasses from the visor. Those she slid onto her face and then made a quick study of herself in the other visor's mirror. How does one decide if they recognize themselves or not?

    The incognito one took a deep breath and said, “Let's do it—before I lose my nerve."

    As we entered the shop, I could literally see her stiffen. I think she expected all eyes to turn toward her, but none did. Some didn't want to be recognized any more than she did. Others just went on about their business as if it were the corner market and canned beans were on sale. No more than a dozen people shuffled about, and from my initial life-form scan, I did not detect anyone of the female gender. That made me somehow feel better about being a part of the sisterhood, but it did nothing for my belief that we could complete the goal. I spied the clerk, who was in fact a petite, pleasant looking woman, but I knew that as a model, she was off-limits.

    "Just act like we're browsing, hon,” I suggested, but the resulting look I got would have made anyone else believe that I had proposed skinny dipping at the farm wastewater treatment facility.

    We wended our way down the first aisle. All the while, my eyes kept vigil on the front door, hoping beyond hope that a woman would enter.

    Suddenly Claudia stopped, contorted her face—I meanreally contorted her face—and quietly shrieked, “Where the hell would you put that thing?"

    "Um, think no fiber for six months,” I fumbled for some nice—okay, maybe just a less shocking—way to say it.

    "Huh?"

    "It's a butt plug!” I quietly yelled through clenched teeth.

    It pained her to hear it, and I'm really not sure exactly where it pained her. She scooted away rather swiftly, almost as if this gadget—as Kris and Ginny called it—had the volition and the power to insert itself if she stood there too long.

    Then the dreaded thing happened. My front door vigil affirmed the fact that all three of the other couples had entered Peter's Palace. Oddly enough, Susan was the one who caught my eye. In fact she stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. She donned a flamboyant hat, one of those a prim and proper lady would wear to keep the bugs and the sun as bay while she gardened with gloved hands. And yes, she sported a pair of sunglasses,